John Wayne Gacy - Parole

Parole

Gacy was granted parole with 12 months' probation on June 18, 1970 after serving 18 months of his 10-year sentence. Upon his release, Gacy announced to a friend who collected him from prison that he intended to re-establish himself in Waterloo. However, within 24 hours of his release, Gacy opted to relocate to Chicago to live with his mother. He arrived in Chicago on June 19 and obtained a job as a short-order cook in a restaurant.

On February 12, 1971, Gacy was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy. The youth claimed that Gacy had lured him into his car at Chicago's Greyhound bus terminal and had attempted to force him into sex. The complaint was subsequently dismissed when the youth failed to appear in court. The Iowa Board of Parole did not learn of this incident (which violated the conditions of his parole) and the records of Gacy's previous convictions were subsequently sealed: he was restored to full citizenship in October 1971. Gacy hid his criminal record until police began investigating him for his later murders.

With financial assistance from his mother, Gacy bought a house in Norwood Park, an unincorporated area of Cook County, Illinois. The address, 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, would be where he resided until his arrest in 1978 and where all his known murders would be committed. In August 1971, shortly after Gacy and his mother moved into the house, he became engaged to Carole Hoff, a divorcee with two young daughters. Hoff had been a friend of his younger sister whom he had briefly dated in high school. His fiancée moved into his home soon after the couple announced their engagement and Gacy's mother subsequently moved out of the house shortly before his wedding, which was held on July 1, 1972.

One week prior to Gacy's wedding, on June 22, 1972, Gacy was again arrested and charged with battery after another young man complained to police that Gacy, impersonating a police officer, had flashed a sheriff's badge, lured him into his car, and forced him to perform oral sex upon him. These charges were dropped after this complainant attempted to blackmail Gacy into paying money in exchange for dropping the charges.