John Wayne Gacy - Early Life

Early Life

John Wayne Gacy was born in Chicago, Illinois, the second of three children born to John Stanley Gacy (June 20, 1900 – December 25, 1969) and Marion Elaine Robinson (May 4, 1908 – December 14, 1989). Gacy was of Polish and Danish heritage. (His paternal grandparents had been born in Poland.) As a child, he was overweight and nonathletic. He was close to his two sisters and mother, but endured a difficult relationship with his father, an alcoholic who was physically abusive toward his wife and children.

Throughout his childhood, Gacy strove to make his father proud of him, but seldom received his approval: one of Gacy's earliest childhood memories was of being beaten with a leather belt by his father at the age of 4 for accidentally disarranging car engine components his father had assembled. He was regularly belittled by his father and often compared unfavorably with his sisters, enduring disdainful accusations of being "dumb and stupid". The friction between father and son was constant throughout his childhood and adolescence, yet in interviews after his arrest, Gacy always vehemently denied he hated him. When he was 6 years old, Gacy stole a toy truck from a neighborhood store. His mother made him walk back to the store, return the toy and apologize to the owners. When his mother told his father, Gacy was beaten with a belt. After this incident, Gacy's mother attempted to shield her son from his father's verbal and physical abuse, yet this only succeeded in Gacy earning accusations from his father that he was a "sissy" and a "Mama's boy" who would "probably grow up queer."

At the age of 9, Gacy was molested by a family friend, a contractor who would take Gacy for rides in his truck, then fondle him. Gacy never told his father about these incidents as he was afraid his father would blame him.

At school, where he was ordered to avoid all sports due to a heart condition, Gacy was an average student with few friends who was an occasional target for mockery and bullying by neighborhood children and classmates. He was known to assist the school truant officer and volunteer to run errands for teachers and neighbors. During the fourth grade, Gacy began to suffer blackouts. He was occasionally hospitalized as a result of these seizures, and also in 1957 for a burst appendix. Gacy later estimated that he spent almost a year in the hospital for these episodes between the ages of 14 and 18, and attributed the decline in his grades to his time out of school. His father suspected the episodes were an effort to gain sympathy; on one occasion he accused his son of faking even as the boy lay in a hospital bed.

Gacy's medical condition was never conclusively diagnosed, although his mother, sisters and few close friends themselves never doubted his illness. A friend of Gacy's named Richard Dalke was also able to recall several instances in which Gacy Sr. ridiculed or beat his son without provocation: on one occasion in 1957, Gacy's father began shouting at his son for no reason, then began hitting him. Gacy's mother attempted to remonstrate between her son and her husband. Dalke recalled Gacy simply "put up his hands to defend himself", adding that he never struck his father during these altercations.

At the age of 18, Gacy became involved in politics, working as an assistant precinct captain for a Democratic Party candidate in his neighborhood. This decision earned more criticism from his father, who accused his son of being a "patsy". Gacy himself later speculated the decision may have been an attempt to seek the acceptance from others that he never received from his father.

The same year Gacy became a Democratic Party candidate, his father bought him a car, with the title of the vehicle being in his father's name until Gacy had completed the monthly repayments to his father. These repayments took several years to complete, and his father would confiscate the keys to the vehicle if Gacy would not do as his father said. On one occasion in 1962, Gacy bought an extra set of keys after his father confiscated the original set of keys from him and used the extra set of keys to drive the vehicle. In response, his father removed the distributor cap from the vehicle; withholding the component for three days. Gacy recalled that as a result of this incident, he felt "totally sick; drained". When his father replaced the distributor cap, Gacy drove to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he found work within the ambulance service before he was transferred to work as a mortuary attendant. He worked in this role for three months before returning to Chicago.

In his role as a mortuary attendant, Gacy slept in a cot behind the embalming room. In this role, he observed morticians embalming dead bodies and later confessed to the fact that on one evening while alone, he had clambered into the coffin of a deceased teenage male, embracing and caressing the body before experiencing a sense of shock.

The shock of the previous evening inspired Gacy to call his mother the next day and ask whether his father would allow him to return home. His father agreed and the same day, Gacy drove back to live with his family in Chicago. Upon his return, Gacy, despite the fact he had failed to graduate from high school, successfully enrolled in the Northwestern Business College from which he graduated in 1963. Gacy subsequently undertook a management-trainee position within the Nunn-Bush Shoe Company.

In 1964, the Nunn-Bush Shoe Company transferred Gacy to Springfield, Illinois, initially to work as a salesman, although Gacy was subsequently promoted to manager of his department. In March of that year, he became engaged to Marlynn Myers, co-worker within the department he managed. After a nine-month courtship, the couple married in September 1964. Marlynn Myers' father subsequently purchased three Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Waterloo, Iowa and he and his wife moved to Waterloo in order for him to manage the restaurants, with the understanding that Gacy and his wife would move into Marlynn's parents' home.

During his courtship with Marlynn, Gacy joined the Jaycees and became a tireless worker for the organization; being named Key Man for the organization in April 1964. The same year, Gacy had his first homosexual experience. According to Gacy, he acquiesced to this incident after a colleague of his within the Springfield Jaycees plied him with drinks, invited him to spend the evening upon his sofa, then performed oral sex upon him while he was drunk.

By 1965, Gacy had risen to the position of vice-president of the Springfield Jaycees. The same year, he was named as the third most outstanding Jaycee within the State of Illinois.