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She waited in the pharmacy for twenty minutes. Then she
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waited a little longer. Her son had asked her to
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wait just a few minutes while he spoke to a
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man about a summer job. Her birthday was that night.
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The cake was at home. The boy never came back
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out of that store. That mother was Elizabeth Piest. Her
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son was Robert. He was 15 years old, and he
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worked part-time at the Nissan Pharmacy in Des Plaines, Illinois,
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a quiet suburb northwest of Chicago. The date was the
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11th of December, 1978. By midnight, the Piest family had
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called the police. By the end of the month, the
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whole country would know the name of the man Robert
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had gone outside to meet. His name was John Wayne Gacy,
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and before that December, almost everyone who knew him would
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have told you the same thing. He was a good neighbor,
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a hard worker, a man you could count on. This
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is Case Files, and this season we are telling the
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story of John Wayne Gacy. Thirty-three young men and boys
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were murdered between 1972 and 1978. every one of them
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died inside one ordinary-looking house in Norwood Park Township. And
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for most of those years, the man who lived in
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that house was celebrated, not suspected. So, let us start
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with the man the neighbors knew, because that is the
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first mystery of this case. How does a man hide
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33 murders behind a life that looks, from the street,
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completely normal? Gacy was born in Chicago in 1942. He
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grew up in a working-class family, left school early, and
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drifted through a string of jobs. He was a big man,
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friendly in conversation, quick with a joke, and hungry for respect.
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In Waterloo, Iowa, in the 1960s, he managed a string
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of fried chicken restaurants, joined the Jaycees, and became a
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local name. People noticed him. That mattered to him. Being
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noticed mattered a great deal. But there was already a
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conviction in his past, and it is part of the
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Load full transcript
public record. In 1968, in Waterloo, Gacy was convicted of
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the sodomy of a teenage boy. He was sentenced to
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10 years in prison. He served 18 months and was
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paroled in 1970. When he came back to Chicago, he
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did not come back as a man in hiding. He
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came back determined to build a new reputation, bigger than
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the old one. And build it he did. He started
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a construction company called PDM Contractors. He remodeled kitchens and pharmacies.
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He hired young men, paid them in cash, and worked
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long days beside them. He bought a ranch-style house on
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Somerdale Avenue in Norridge, just outside Chicago. He married for
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a second time. He had two children. He threw summer
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parties with the grill going and the neighbors over the fence.
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And then there was the clown. Gacy dressed as Pogo
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the Clown with a painted face, a bright costume, and
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balloons for the children. He performed at fundraisers, at parades,
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at hospital visits, at children's parties. He was photographed smiling
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in costume. He was the man who showed up. If
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a civic group needed a volunteer, Gacy volunteered. If a
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politician needed a crowd, Gacy brought one. He even had
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himself photographed with a First Lady. Respectability was not an
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accident for John Wayne Gacy. It was a project. That
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is why the Piest case matters so much. Robert Piest
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was not a runaway. He was not a stranger passing
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through town. He was a 15-year-old boy with a job,
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a family, and a mother waiting in the store. When
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he vanished, there was someone who had seen him last,
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someone who could describe exactly what happened in those final minutes.
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A co-worker named Kim Byers told police what she had seen.
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A contractor had come into the pharmacy that evening, twice.
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The second time, he stayed until almost nine o'clock. Robert
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had told Kim to watch the register because the contractor
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wanted to talk to him. He stepped outside. He did
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not come back. Des Plaines police moved quickly
The contractor
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was John Wayne Gacy, whose company had recently remodeled that
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very pharmacy. Officers went to his house. Gacy said he
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knew nothing about the boy. He was calm, he was helpful.
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He invited them to look around, and then he asked
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them to leave. But a background check changed the shape
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of the case in a single afternoon. The 1968 Iowa
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conviction was there, in the record, and inside the house,
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during a search, officers found things that did not belong
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to Gacy— a receipt for developing photographs, items that belonged to
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other young men, young men whose families had reported them
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missing in different years, in different towns, and who had
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never been connected to one another until now. Police put
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Gacy under surveillance. For days, officers followed him as he
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drove around Chicago, as he worked, as he ate, as
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he went about the ordinary business of an ordinary contractor.
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Gacy knew he was being watched. He played to it,
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He waved at the officers, he bought them coffee, he
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acted like a man with nothing to hide, because acting
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like a man with nothing to hide was something he
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had practiced for years. And yet, inside that house on
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Summerdale Avenue, there was something the officers could smell before
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they could see it. On a later visit, Two officers
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noticed an odor in the house that Gacy explained away
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as a blocked sewer, as damp, as moisture under the floor.
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The officers wrote it down. They did not forget it.
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A smell like that in a house where a missing
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boy's photograph receipt has been found is not a detail.
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It is a warning. So here is where we leave
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this first episode. A mother waiting in a pharmacy on
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her birthday. A boy who stepped outside to talk about
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a summer job. A contractor in a clown costume who
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seemed to be everybody's friend. And a house, quiet from
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the street, with something wrong underneath its floor. In the
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next episode... The police stop watching from the street and
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go inside. They get a second search warrant. They lift
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the boards. And what they find in the crawlspace beneath
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that house will end the argument about who John Wayne
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Gacy really was forever. But before we get there, remember
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the number that frames this whole season. Thirty-three. 33 young
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men and boys aged from 14 to 21. Most of
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them were lured with the same simple promise that was
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made to Robert Piest. Work, a job, a chance to
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earn a little money. The promise was real enough to
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walk outside for. It was the man making it who
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was not. This season is told with the victims first.
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We will name them where the record names them. We
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will not dwell on the manner of their deaths beyond
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what the public record requires to understand the case. And
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we will not let the clown suit or the parties
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or the photographs with important people distract from the simplest
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fact of all. Thirty-three families waited for sons and brothers
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who never came home. Robert Piest's family waited that December night,
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and then they waited through Christmas, and then they waited
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for answers that would take weeks to arrive. The answers,
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when they came, were worse than anything they had feared.
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But the waiting itself is where this story starts. A mother.
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In a pharmacy. Watching the door. Willing her boy to
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walk back in. I am Marcus. This is Case Files.
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The next episode is called The Search Warrant, and I
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will see you there.