John Wayne Gacy - Arrest and Confession

Arrest and Confession

After being informed that police had found human remains in his crawl space and that he would now face murder charges, Gacy told officers he wanted to "clear the air", adding that he knew his arrest was inevitable since he had spent the previous evening on the couch in his lawyers' office.

In the early hours of December 22, 1978, Gacy confessed to police that since 1972, he had committed approximately 25–30 murders, all of whom he falsely claimed were teenage male runaways or male prostitutes, whom he would typically abduct from Chicago's Greyhound Bus station or off the streets and lure to his house with either the promise of a job with his construction company, with an offer of money for sex, or simply grab them by force.

Once back at Gacy's house, the victims would be handcuffed or otherwise bound, then choked with a rope or a board as they were sexually assaulted. Gacy would often stick clothing in the victims' mouths to muffle their screams. Many of his victims had been strangled with a tourniquet, which Gacy referred to as his "rope trick". Occasionally, the victim had convulsed for an "hour or two" after the rope trick before dying. When asked where he drew the inspiration for the two-by-four found at his house in which he had manacled many of his victims, Gacy stated he had been inspired to construct the device from reading about the Houston Mass Murders.

The victims were usually lured alone to his house, although on approximately three occasions, Gacy had what he called "doubles"—occasions wherein he killed two victims on the same evening.

Most victims were buried in Gacy's crawl space where, periodically, he would pour quicklime to hasten the decomposition of the bodies. Gacy stated he had lost count of the number of victims buried in his crawl space and had thrown the final five victims—all killed in 1978—off the I-55 bridge into the Des Plaines River because his crawl space was full. When asked about Robert Piest, Gacy confessed to strangling the youth, adding that he had been interrupted by a phone call from a business colleague while doing so; he also admitted to having disposed of Piest's body in the Des Plaines river and stated that the reason he had arrived at Des Plaines police in a disheveled manner in the early hours of December 13 was because he had been in a minor traffic accident after disposing of Piest's body en route to his appointment with Des Plaines officers. He also confessed to police he had buried the body of John Butkovitch in his garage. To assist officers in their search for the victims buried in his house, Gacy drew a diagram of his basement to show where the bodies were buried.