JWayne Gacy was one of the most prolific and horrific serial killers in America, responsible for the deaths of 33 young people, 26 of whom were buried in the trail space under his home in Norwood Park Township, Chicago. An egomaniacal sociopath who ran a remodeling business, had strong local political ties (and aspirations), and was lit by the moon as a child hospital clown named Pogo, Gacy was the worst of the worst. He was also, unsurprisingly, a cunning liar, as confirmed in a 1992 interview that serves as the centerpiece of John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguise, in which he claims that the police and the media “created this image of a fantasy monster” and that “it had nothing to do with anyone’s murders.” Rarely has an arrogant killer lied so much and so blatantly.
In fact, the only real thing he can say throughout the chat, directed by legendary FBI profiler Robert Ressler, is that “the clown has had a bad name for what they’ve used in my case.”
Released March 25 in Peacock, John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguise it is a history lesson, a psychological investigation, and a showcase of a cold and deceptive inhumanity, which draws a fine line between research and voyeurism. His main hook is that 1992 conversation between Gacy and Ressler, which looks closely at the murdered prisoner as he talks confidently and confidently about his innocence — he even says he didn’t even know the dead — while flipping through a huge volume. of research material which, according to him, exonerates him. No one on planet Earth buys this nonsense, including this docuseria. Still, if anyone comes close, it’s Craig Bowley, a longtime prison correspondent with Gacy, who helped set up Ressler’s meeting with the devil and spent years befriending him. , to the point that he explains that he was almost heartbroken when he finally had to say goodbye – with a hug – to his acquaintance and confidant.
Bowley’s distorted fascination with Gacy is one area in which John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguise he could have inquired much harder. For the most part, though, this six-part nonfiction adventure is a little too complete; like so many siblings of its kind, it could have been at least a shorter episode without losing any key data or information. This is especially felt in the middle of the back, when disproportionate attention is paid to the meticulousness of Gacy’s trial (and, in particular, to her futile defense of madness), as well as to the efforts to name the handful of victims. which were never officially identified. at the time. These subjects are relevant to the larger portrait painted here, but greater conciseness would have reinforced the impact of these passages, in addition to having improved the momentum of the procedures.
Fortunately, John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguise otherwise it is exhaustive, enlightening and intriguing. The Gacy he reveals is an ambitious and ruthless narcissistic man who grew up with an abusive alcoholic father and sexual appetite for young men. He married and divorced twice (he had children with his first wife), all while doing homosexual tests with countless individuals (he stood firm in the line that he was bisexual). He struggled to forge with political organizations and power actors in Chicago (sometimes by spreading and promoting pornography), and ran a remodeling business with male teens who had a suspicious habit of disappearing. When a possible recruit, Robert Piest, a 15-year-old Des Plains native, disappeared in 1978 while watching Gacy on a job, when the boy’s mother was waiting for him outside his workplace, police began searching. . What they finally found was a mass grave that had never been seen before.
Using interviews with detectives, journalists, family members, friends, relatives of the victims and more, as well as archive news broadcasts, images of the crime scene, home movies and photographs, John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguise provides an exhaustive account of Gacy’s surveillance and arrest by the police, and of the excavation of her nightmare house. The series escapes formal sensationalism at most. there are no dramatic recreations (only staged shots of sets similar to key locations are used) and Gacy’s images as Pogo — an appearance she didn’t use to lure the victims — are kept to a minimum. His narration has a baffling quality, which also analyzes Gacy’s checkered past, before Chicago, Iowa, where he was convicted of sexually assaulting the teenage son of a state representative and received ten years behind bars. at the Anamosa State Penitentiary.
“What they finally found was a mass grave that had never been seen before.”
The fact that Gacy was released on parole just 18 months after the sentencing demonstrates one of the many cases where criminal justice and law enforcement systems fell short. John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguise details how Gacy repeatedly appeared on police radar for various crime cases and missing persons, and yet always seemed to border on either his personality or the political connections he had established throughout the area. In addition, in its epilogue chapter, the series claims that police, fearful of dredging revelations that would shed light on their initial investigation, may have deliberately ignored clues and evidence in later years that would have unearthed additional victims. of Gacy (boasted that his body count was closer to 45).
Open and implicit accusations against the police are common components of John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguise, and are complemented by a rather persuasive conspiracy theory about the possibility that Gacy did not act alone, but was helped by members of John Norman’s pedophile sex trafficking ring to which Gacy was linked through an employee. (Phil Because). Gacy’s familiarity with those people, as well as his fellow shady digging trenches Michael Rossi and David Cram, makes it entirely possible for others to help him carry out facets of his long murder storm. Consequently, although Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994, the case continues to raise awkward questions.
John Wayne Gacy: Devil in disguiseThe conclusion makes a compelling argument that, in some respects, more should be done, for example, by police digging up the courtyard of the apartment building where Gacy’s mother lived and where she most likely buried more bodies. What needs no further detail, however, is the depth of Gacy’s deviant depravity, which despite her affable 1992 Ressler routine, can be seen hiding behind her hard, emotionless eyes.