The Man Who Killed Boys Clifford L. Linedecker garrett county press Also by Clifford L. Lindecker: Psychic Spy My Life With Elvis (with Becky Yancey) Country Music Stars and the Supernatural Copyright © 1980 by Clifford L. Linedecker All rights reserved. Garrett County Press Digital Edition 2013 ISBN: 978-1-939430-06-9 For information, please address: www.gcpress.com Contents Introduction Prologue: Blood and a Euchre Deck 1 Murder City 2 Waterloo 3. A Model Neighbor 4. Disappearances 5. Lavender City 6. Buried Dreams and a President's Wife 7. The Rack 8. The Apocalypse 9. Death House 10. John and Jack Epilogue Photos At the time of this writing John Wayne Gacy, Jr., was still awaiting trial, and he must be assumed innocent until proven guilty. June 1979 Introduction A President is shot down before thousands of witnesses, a school bus loaded with children is kidnapped, a religious fanatic forces hundreds of his followers to drink poison, and an individual known for his industry, generosity, and neighborliness is arrested in the sex-slayings of thirty-three young men and boys. The incidents capture our attention for a while until some new horror occurs to eclipse the old. For a time there is shock and grief, but hardly any surprise. Politics by assassination, terrorism, and mass murder have become too commonplace. The perpetrators in some ways are like the professional gunmen of the Old West who reigned as the "fastest gun" until, inevitably, they were replaced by someone new. The chain of atrocities in my own lifetime has seen a succession of American mass killers, all reaping successively higher tolls, that has included Howard Unruh, Charles J. Whitman, Richard Speck, Juan V. Corona, and the team of Dean Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley. Now John Wayne Gacy, Jr. has been accused of eclipsing the toll of twenty-seven dead in the Houston slayings of Corll and Henley. But I have no doubt that some day even the grisly record of dead attributed to Gacy, that rotund amateur clown who reputedly used his contracting business to attract young male victims for sadistic torture, homosexual rape, and murder, will also be eclipsed. But it will be difficult to overshadow or even match the grisly ruthlessness of the murders that occurred in suburban Chicago. The murders are personally significant to me because I live in such close proximity to where they originated and occurred. My home is in the center of New Town, and almost every day I pass the clubs, discos, and street corners where many of the victims were apparently picked up by their killer. I know the street people, and I know people who have been friends, business associates, and neighbors of the man accused of some of the most horrifying crimes of the century. I will also remember the murders because they so eloquently illustrate some of the serious flaws in our criminal justice system, which make anyone a potential victim of violent crime. The slayings expose both the worst of the system, and—thanks to the work of a relatively small but well-trained and dedicated suburban police department—the best. A court order enjoining authorities and others from discussing the case prevented me from obtaining interviews with several policemen and others close to the investigation. Dozens of other people were available and cooperative, however. They were of immense help in compiling information for the book. Thanks to their consideration, it was possible, though difficult, to complete the research. It was necessary to work harder and dig more industriously, but the information was there to be mined. Among individuals and organizations who gave of their time or facilities to assist in the book were: Jack Hovelson, of the Waterloo Bureau of the Des Moines Register; Chris Baum and Carolyn Lenz, of the Times Home newspapers, Division of Lerner Newspapers, Chicago; Barbara Buell, of the State Journal Register of Springfield, Illinois; Tim Dahlberg of the Las Vegas Review-Journal; Leslie Griffin, police reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette; Don N. Jensen of the Kenosha News; Micki Winfield; Richard Crowe; Mary Benninghoff; Kathy Gunther; former friends, neighbors, and business associates of John Wayne Gacy, and parents of victims who willingly talked to me, as well as others related to the case in a more official capacity who cannot be named. My thanks also go to the friendly people in the Black Hawk County Courthouse in Waterloo; the County Clerk's Office in the criminal courts complex in Chicago; and to the staffs of the public libraries in both Chicago and Waterloo. Finally, it should be noted that the names of Donald and Lydia Czarna and of their son-in-law, Gregory Katelanos, are aliases, in accordance with their wishes, as is "Kotowski," the maiden name of John Gacy's second wife, and James Tullery, Mark Miller and Dwight Andersson. Cliff Linedecker Prologue: Blood and a Euchre Deck Christmas-tree lights were already twinkling from the windows of the neatly kept single-story brick homes in Norwood Park township, an unincorporated area just outside the northwest boundaries of Chicago. A biting wind swept across the tidy lawns, and twenty-nine-degree cold frosted the windows of the cars and pickup trucks parked on freshly plowed driveways and along snowy curbs. By December 2, Chicagoans have accepted the arrival of cold, snowy winter weather and they plan their activities accordingly. In Norwood Park that means that many people had merely moved their weekend parties from backyards outfitted with picnic tables and barbecue pits, indoors to dens and living rooms or to basement recreation areas where guests could perch on stools in front of bars and relax in the snug comfort of sofas and easy chairs. The families in Norwood Park, like those in the nearby communities of Norridge, Des Plaines, Niles, and in the far northwest side of Chicago, are made up of people who work in area printing shops, chemical laboratories, and factories that produce everything from screws and machine tools to surgical instruments and cutlery. They had long ago grown accustomed to ear-shattering blasts of noise from the engines of jets skimming low over their houses on their way to or from busy Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The approach of the holiday season was making itself known in increased traffic at O'Hare, already the world's busiest air terminal, as travelers rushed to beat the almost impossible crush anticipated in a few weeks. It was also the busiest time of the year for Florece Branson, a