American Monsters: John Wayne Gacy - Featuring an Interview with Gacy Attorney Karen Conti
Links to Karen's Book, Radio Show, Podcast...
Karen Conti's Book: Killing Time With John Wayne Gacy
The Karen Conti Radio Show
Karen Conti's Website
The Karen Conti Podcast
Sources:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/john-wayne-gacy
Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy by Karen Conti
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.
Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening now.
Speaker 2: True crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish,
Speaker 2: the strange in the darkly comic. I'm zevn Odelberg, host
Speaker 2: of Kind of Murdery, a podcast that's about more than
Speaker 2: just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to
Speaker 2: a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved,
Speaker 2: the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just
Speaker 2: so long as it's kind of murdery. Hey, everybody, thanks
Speaker 2: for being here. Just like it says in the intro,
Speaker 2: I am Zeven Odelberg, and this is kind of Murdery.
Speaker 2: You know me. I am your friendly neighborhood true crimes
Speaker 2: and real Horror's host. Welcome to the first episode of
Speaker 2: season seven of Kind of Murdery. It's been a busy
Speaker 2: sun and I know I've been dropping a string of
Speaker 2: classic episodes, but I am back, live and unfiltered for
Speaker 2: the start of a new season with a very very intense,
Speaker 2: but I think compelling and even edifying. That's a fancy
Speaker 2: word for educational. First episode here in season seven. Now,
Speaker 2: if you've been listening to me for a while, you
Speaker 2: probably know that I don't think much of trigger warnings.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think the trigger warnings themselves can trigger trauma,
Speaker 2: and beyond that, they communicate the idea that avoiding facing
Speaker 2: one's fears and trauma is the proper first choice path. Now,
Speaker 2: I've found it to be true in my own life
Speaker 2: that facing scary stuff is really the only way to
Speaker 2: deal with it. As the saying goes, the only way
Speaker 2: out is through, So I don't hold much truck with
Speaker 2: trigger warnings. That said, I'm going to issue one today.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is the story of famed American serial killer,
Speaker 2: I should say infamous American serial killer John Wayne Gacy,
Speaker 2: the Killer Clown, a man whose heinous acts makes Stephen
Speaker 2: King's famous Killer Clown novel. It read like a children's
Speaker 2: bedtime story, but it is certainly not good Night Moon,
Speaker 2: and I must tell you that though I've covered all
Speaker 2: kinds of heinous killers on this show, serial and otherwise,
Speaker 2: for me, Gaysey's story is the worst. I hated the
Speaker 2: days I spent researching it because the man was truly
Speaker 2: a stomach churning monster. So if you're squeamish at all,
Speaker 2: and a lot of you probably aren't because you listen
Speaker 2: to this show, But if you are, this might be
Speaker 2: an episode to skip and certainly not to listen to
Speaker 2: with children. That said, I hope you find the courage
Speaker 2: not to skip it, because this is no ordinary episode.
Speaker 2: It's the new season premiere. And after I tell Gasey's
Speaker 2: story in case some of you don't already know it.
Speaker 2: And by the way, here I should give a particular
Speaker 2: shout out to Katie Serena and all its Interesting dot
Speaker 2: com for her article on Gaysey that I found particularly helpful.
Speaker 2: All sources are in the show notes. But after I
Speaker 2: tell Gaysey's story, I have a pretty fascinating guest interview
Speaker 2: that follows. I interview defense attorney, legal scholar, television legal expert,
Speaker 2: podcast host. Her resume is truly impressive. She's even tried
Speaker 2: a case before the Supreme Court. She's got a radio
Speaker 2: show too. Who am I talking about while I'm talking
Speaker 2: about my guest? After the Gaysey Story. Award winning author
Speaker 2: of the National Indie Excellence Award, the Silver Nonfiction Book Award,
Speaker 2: and shortlisted for the International Rubery Award for Best True
Speaker 2: Crime Book. My guest is Karen Conti, who represented John
Speaker 2: Wayne Gacy on death row. Now I didn't learn this,
Speaker 2: I learned it from Karen's excellent book, Killing Time with
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gacy. That's the book that won all the awards.
Speaker 2: But Illinois state prisons charge prisoners of means rent for
Speaker 2: the time they spend incarcerated. Now, John Wayne Gacy, who
Speaker 2: was owner of several restaurant franchises, was in fact a
Speaker 2: prisoner of means, and as he told Kanti when he
Speaker 2: reached out to her, she was just a young, up
Speaker 2: and coming lawyer at the time. If they're gonna charge
Speaker 2: me rent, they ought to just evict me. Gaysey, alongside
Speaker 2: many of his terrible, terrible qualities, was famously very witty
Speaker 2: and had a sharp sense of humor, although it feels
Speaker 2: strange to compliment the man in any way. So John
Speaker 2: Wayne Gacy already had defense attorneys handling his death row
Speaker 2: appeals cases, and Karen was initially hired for his suit,
Speaker 2: objecting to being charged rent for his time in prison.
Speaker 2: But Karen Conti was and is a lifelong opponent of
Speaker 2: the death penalty, believing it is never justified for the
Speaker 2: state to take a life, and so her role with
Speaker 2: Gaysey evolved from the civil rent suit against Illinois into
Speaker 2: assisting with his death penalty appeals. Gaysey himself was a
Speaker 2: big fan of Karen and her partner, and so over
Speaker 2: the years she spent quite a bit of time with him,
Speaker 2: both on the phone and in person. And the story
Speaker 2: she tells is a gut wrenching, bone chilling, emotionally difficult read.
Speaker 2: But the book itself is never difficult to read because
Speaker 2: it's fantastically paced, incredibly well written, emotionally raw, and absolutely
Speaker 2: gripping from start to finish. I give Karen a ton
Speaker 2: of credit for the honesty and truth of her voice
Speaker 2: and her willingness to take a hard look at all
Speaker 2: aspects of the gay See case and to ruthlessly examine
Speaker 2: all parts of it, just like the expert defense attorney
Speaker 2: she is. And when I say ruthlessly examined, to her credit,
Speaker 2: Karen does not spare or excuse herself for her role
Speaker 2: or her reasons as to why she would choose to
Speaker 2: represent a monster like Gaysey, and her account is highly personal,
Speaker 2: revealing not only the events and actions she experienced, but
Speaker 2: also the emotional and professional toll and advantages that dealing
Speaker 2: with an evil like Gaysey's brought. It's a great book.
Speaker 2: I can't say I enjoyed reading it, but it's great.
Speaker 2: And if you are interested in serial killers, legal history,
Speaker 2: the moral quandaries presented by the death penalty, or just
Speaker 2: expertly written nonfiction that reads like your favorite legal thrillers,
Speaker 2: then you should absolutely get your hands on a copy
Speaker 2: of Karen Conti's Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy. All
Speaker 2: relevant links are in the show notes, and you should
Speaker 2: absolutely stick around after the Gaysey story for my interview
Speaker 2: with Karen herself. It's not easy content, but it is fascinating, compelling, gripping.
Speaker 2: We cover ground that hadn't occurred to me before I
Speaker 2: spoke with Karen, and I'm proud of the interview. So
Speaker 2: with that, these horrors aren't going to tell themselves, let's
Speaker 2: get to it. Kind of murderies American Monster John Wayne Gacy,
Speaker 2: featuring an interview with award winning author and Gasey's defense attorney,
Speaker 2: Karen Conty. Starts now January two, nineteen seventy two, the
Speaker 2: dawn of a new year and the promise of a
Speaker 2: fresh start, But for sixteen year old Timothy McCoy. It
Speaker 2: was the beginning of a nightmare. McCoy had met John
Speaker 2: Wayne Gacy at the Chicago bus terminal just the night before. Gasey,
Speaker 2: with his seemingly generous demeanor, offered the young traveler a
Speaker 2: place to stay. McCoy, eager to get home to Iowa
Speaker 2: after spending Christmas in Michigan, accepted Gaysey's offer. In the
Speaker 2: early hours of the morning, McCoy got up, deciding to
Speaker 2: repay Gacy's kindness with a simple breakfast. He carefully laid
Speaker 2: out eggs and bacon, setting the table for two. With
Speaker 2: the innocence of youth, he walked up the stairs to
Speaker 2: wake his host, completely unaware of the knife still in
Speaker 2: his hand. What followed would forever alter the course of
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gacy's life, and, of course, tragically ind McCoy's.
Speaker 2: Not realizing the boy had intended no harm, Gasey reacted
Speaker 2: with sudden violence, stabbing Timothy McCoy in the chest and
Speaker 2: killing him instantly. Then, in a sudden panic, he dragged
Speaker 2: the body to the crawl space beneath his home, burying
Speaker 2: it and covering the grave with concrete. Gasey would later
Speaker 2: report to authorities that the act of killing McCoy gave
Speaker 2: him a quote mind numbing orgasm unquote. Though the murder
Speaker 2: had been a mistake, it awakened in Gacy a craving
Speaker 2: for what he called the ultimate thrill. Imagine living in
Speaker 2: a quaint neighborhood where everyone knows your name and praises
Speaker 2: your generosity. John Wayne Gaysey fit that description perfectly to
Speaker 2: the unsuspecting public. He was the epitome of a good neighbor,
Speaker 2: a mild mannered, likable man who always had a smile
Speaker 2: and a helping hand. He worked diligently in customer serviced,
Speaker 2: first managing his father in law's trio of KFC franchises
Speaker 2: before launching his own construction business. His customers saw him
Speaker 2: as a beacon of kindness and generosity. He hired local teenagers,
Speaker 2: providing them with much needed jobs, and was an active
Speaker 2: member of the local Junior Chamber of Commerce. Gaysey even
Speaker 2: dedicated his weekends to bringing joy to children, dressing up
Speaker 2: as Pogo the clown for birthday parties. No one would
Speaker 2: have guessed that behind the painted smile lay a monstrous secret.
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gacy's life began on March seventeenth nineteen forty
Speaker 2: two in Chicago. His father, a man with a mean streak,
Speaker 2: despised him. He called young Gaysey a sissy and subjected
Speaker 2: him to brutal abuse From as early as four years old.
Speaker 2: Whippings with a belt and harsh verbal assaults were routine
Speaker 2: in the Gaycy household. At seven, Gaysey faced another nightmare
Speaker 2: when a family friend molested him. Too scared of his
Speaker 2: father's wrath, he kept the incident to himself. In the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, Gasey was a familiar face at community events,
Speaker 2: mingling with local politicians and even managing to snap a
Speaker 2: photo with First Lady Rosalind Carter. To everyone around him,
Speaker 2: he was a model citizen. Yet just months after that
Speaker 2: photograph with the First Lady was taken, the horrifying truth
Speaker 2: would come to light. John Wayne Gacy had murdered thirty
Speaker 2: three young men and boys. His charm and seemingly altruistic
Speaker 2: nature were nothing more than a grotesque mask hiding his
Speaker 2: true monstrous identity. Early on, Gasey realized that he was gay,
Speaker 2: but during the nineteen fifties, homosexuality was still taboo, so
Speaker 2: he pretended to be straight his entire life. Gaysey had
Speaker 2: a congenital heart condition that limited his physical activity and
Speaker 2: plagued him with lifelong obesity. He spent much of his
Speaker 2: youth in the hospital. When he was eleven, doctor discovered
Speaker 2: that he had a blood clot in his brain. They
Speaker 2: were able to treat it, but even that didn't spare
Speaker 2: Gaysey from his father's wrath. Eventually, Gaysey had had enough
Speaker 2: of the abuse, and he picked up and moved out west.
Speaker 2: While working as a mortuary assistant in Las Vegas, Gacy
Speaker 2: slept on a cot behind the embalming room one night.
Speaker 2: After observing the morticians embalming dead bodies. He crawled into
Speaker 2: a coffin with one. He laid in the coffin for
Speaker 2: a time, embracing and caressing the body a teenage boy.
Speaker 2: His night spent fondling a male child's corpse shocked the
Speaker 2: not yet completely depraved Gaycy so much that he returned
Speaker 2: home and enrolled in business school after just a few
Speaker 2: months in Vegas. He never told anyone about his night
Speaker 2: with the body in the morgue, at least that version
Speaker 2: of him never told anyone. After graduating from Northwestern Business College,
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gacy met Marilyn Myers, a bright and engaging
Speaker 2: coworker at a shoe company in Springfield, Illinois. Their connection
Speaker 2: was immediate, and in nineteen sixty four the married. Soon after,
Speaker 2: Gaysey took over the management of his father in law's
Speaker 2: Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises in Waterloo, Iowa. The young couple
Speaker 2: moved in with Meyer's parents, setting up what appeared to
Speaker 2: be an idyllic life. Gaysey and Myers had two children,
Speaker 2: adding to the picture perfect family image. To neighbors and friends,
Speaker 2: Gaysey was the epitome of a devoted husband and father.
Speaker 2: He managed the family business with apparent dedication and seemed
Speaker 2: to thrive in his new role. But behind the mask
Speaker 2: of normalcy, Gaysey harbored dark and insatiable desires. While maintaining
Speaker 2: his respectable facade, Gasey sought out secret avenues to satisfy
Speaker 2: his depravity. He joined the Waterloo Jaycs, a group of
Speaker 2: local businessmen whose extracurricular activities included wife swapping, prostitution, pornography,
Speaker 2: and drug abuse. This clandestine world provided Gaysey with a
Speaker 2: semblance of freedom to indulge his twisted inclinations. Not content
Speaker 2: with the jc's hidden debauchery, Gaysey created his own secret haven.
Speaker 2: He transformed his basement into into a club, specifically targeting teenagers. Here,
Speaker 2: under the guise of a friendly neighbor, offering a safe space,
Speaker 2: young people could drink and play pool without fear of
Speaker 2: getting in trouble. But his club was more than just
Speaker 2: a teenage hangout. It was a predator's lair. Gasey's basement
Speaker 2: was a trap designed to lure unsuspecting teens. The welcoming
Speaker 2: atmosphere masked the true danger that lay beneath. While the
Speaker 2: community saw him as a generous and kind hearted man,
Speaker 2: those who entered his basement stepped into the dark world
Speaker 2: of John Wayne Gacy, a world where his insidious nature
Speaker 2: thrived unchecked. He often would build up trust with his
Speaker 2: victims so they wouldn't need to be on guard. Detective
Speaker 2: Sergeant Jason Moran of the Cook County Sheriff's Office said
Speaker 2: years later he was their employer, their friend. He may
Speaker 2: have been someone who provided them with alcohol and drugs
Speaker 2: and maybe a place to sleep at night. That's an
Speaker 2: easy way to kill someone. Then Gasey began to force
Speaker 2: some of those young men, including those he employed at KFC,
Speaker 2: to perform sex acts with him. This would be his
Speaker 2: first downfall. The line between employer and predator blurred as
Speaker 2: Gaysey used his position to manipulate and control. The facade
Speaker 2: of the benevolent businessman crumbled, revealing the sinister predator beneath.
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gaysey was arrested on charges of sexual coercion
Speaker 2: in the workplace. The chain of events that led to
Speaker 2: his arrest began in August of nineteen sixty seven, when
Speaker 2: Gaysey hired a fifteen year old named Donald Voorhees, the
Speaker 2: son of a fellow JC member, to do some housework.
Speaker 2: Gasey lured the teenager into his basement, plied him with alcohol,
Speaker 2: and forced him to perform oral sex. The boy kept
Speaker 2: the incident to himself until March of nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: when he finally confided in his father, sparking a criminal
Speaker 2: investigation that shattered Gaisey's carefully constructed facade. Desperate to silence Vorhees,
Speaker 2: Gaysey's actions turned even more sinister. A few months later,
Speaker 2: he paid a KFC employee three hundred dollars to beat
Speaker 2: up Vorhees, hoping to intimidate him into silence. However, Vorhees
Speaker 2: escaped the attempted beating and reported the incident, which only
Speaker 2: intensified the case against Gaysey. In December, he pled guilty
Speaker 2: to oral sodomy. At that time, sexual relations between two
Speaker 2: people of the same sex were illegal in Iowa. Gaysey
Speaker 2: was sentenced to ten years in prison and was promptly
Speaker 2: served divorce papers from his wife, whom he would never
Speaker 2: see again. But less than two years after his sentencing,
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gacy was granted parole for being a model prisoner.
Speaker 2: During the short time he was incarcerated, Gaysey managed to
Speaker 2: secure a raise for the prison mess hall workers, increased
Speaker 2: membership of the prison jacs by six hundred, worked to
Speaker 2: improve conditions for prisoners, and oversaw the installation of a
Speaker 2: miniature golf course in the recreation yard. He also pretended
Speaker 2: he was straight and that he hated quote queers unquote,
Speaker 2: in order to protect himself from the wrath of his
Speaker 2: fellow inmates. Gasey was given twelve months probation under the
Speaker 2: condition that he moved back to Chicago to live with
Speaker 2: his mother and maintained a ten pm curfew. He agreed
Speaker 2: and declared, I'll never go back to jail. The illusion
Speaker 2: of his normal life had crumbled, revealing the true nature
Speaker 2: of the man. Months after his release, when he and
Speaker 2: his mother were living into Plains, Iowa, John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 2: lured a teenage boy to his house and tried to
Speaker 2: rape him. Gaysey was charged with sexual assault, but the
Speaker 2: charges were dropped when the boy failed to show up
Speaker 2: to court. Gayzy had technically violated his parole, but somehow
Speaker 2: his parole officer was never aware of the episode. By
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one, Gacy had settled into a new home
Speaker 2: in Norwood Park, a neighborhood in midwestern Chicago. His yellow
Speaker 2: brick ranch house there at eighty two thirteen West Summerdale
Speaker 2: Avenue would eventually become a graveyard for twenty nine young
Speaker 2: men and boys. While in prison, John Wayne Gacy became
Speaker 2: something of an artist, obsessively sketching the image of Pogo
Speaker 2: the Clown. After his release, he channeled his fixation into
Speaker 2: reality by joining the local Jolly Joker Club, a group
Speaker 2: of clowns who performed at birthday parties and hospitals. Gasey
Speaker 2: taught himself the intricacies of applying clown makeup, transforming himself
Speaker 2: into Pogo the Clown, just as he had envisioned in
Speaker 2: his prison drawings. Gaisey's performances as Pogo the Clown were
Speaker 2: not limited to children's parties. He became a familiar face
Speaker 2: at various local events, including Democratic party functions and charitable gatherings.
Speaker 2: He was the life of the party, bouncing kids on
Speaker 2: his knee and spreading cheer. But this cheerful exterior masked
Speaker 2: a much darker reality. Residents of Norwood Park recall seeing
Speaker 2: Gaisey at his favorite bar, the good Luck Lounge, dressed
Speaker 2: in full clown regalia. The public would feel much more
Speaker 2: comfortable if Gaysey was the type of creepy, sequestered ghoul
Speaker 2: that was unkept in heinous, Detective Sergeant Jason Moran said
Speaker 2: years later. But instead he dresses a clown and bounce
Speaker 2: kids on his knee. He would knock at your door
Speaker 2: and say vote for my candidate. Gaysey's clown persona was
Speaker 2: a master stroke of deception. By presenting himself as a
Speaker 2: friendly and harmless entertainer, he managed to ingratiate himself with
Speaker 2: the community, disarming any suspicions about his true nature. The
Speaker 2: cheerful clown mass concealed the predator lurking underneath, enabling him
Speaker 2: to gain the trust of those around him. This duality,
Speaker 2: the friendly clown and the monstrous killer, made Gaisey's true
Speaker 2: nature all the more ten terrifying. The neighborhood saw him
Speaker 2: as a harmless entertainer, never suspecting the horrors he was
Speaker 2: capable of committing. But Pogo the Clown didn't fool everybody.
Speaker 2: Carol Hoff, his high school sweetheart and second wife, whom
Speaker 2: he married in nineteen seventy two, began to question his sexuality.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy five, Gaysey admitted to her that he
Speaker 2: was bisexual. Hoff promptly divorced him, leaving him alone in
Speaker 2: their house, though she denied knowing what was to come,
Speaker 2: Hoff later admitted to authorities that she had seen him
Speaker 2: bringing teenage boys into their garage. The same year that
Speaker 2: Gaisey married Hoff, he committed his first murder, that of
Speaker 2: Timothy McCoy. He stashed McCoy's body under his crawl space.
Speaker 2: Gasey reportedly managed to kill a second victim while still
Speaker 2: married to Hoff in nineteen seventy four. This victim remains unidentified,
Speaker 2: but Gaisey claimed to have strangled a young man and
Speaker 2: hid him in his closet. When the body began to leak.
Speaker 2: He moved into the crawl space as well. After his divorce,
Speaker 2: Gaysey had the freedom to bring more victims into his house.
Speaker 2: The killer clown operated with impunity, luring young men and
Speaker 2: boys to their doom. Save for his final four victims,
Speaker 2: who he dumped into the river. All of his victims
Speaker 2: were killed in and stored under his house. The crawl
Speaker 2: space became a macob graveyard, a silent witness to Gasey's
Speaker 2: horrific crimes. Gaysey's victims were all young men and boys.
Speaker 2: He prayed on still unidentified teenagers, some who were drifters
Speaker 2: from out of town, and some who were local boys
Speaker 2: who worked for him. He lured some into his car
Speaker 2: by impersonating an officer, or to his house with the
Speaker 2: offer of a job, a place to party, or even money.
Speaker 2: Once he had a victim in his space, Gasey coaxed
Speaker 2: them with drugs or alcohol, or a sick magic trick
Speaker 2: during which he'd handcuffed them and dangle keys in front
Speaker 2: of their face. Then the true horror began. Gasey would torture, rape,
Speaker 2: and murder them. One of Gaisey's favorite acts of torture
Speaker 2: was to sit on his victim with all of his weight,
Speaker 2: which was substantial and forced the victim to filate him.
Speaker 2: He strangled and revived his victims, sometimes even partially drowning
Speaker 2: them in his bathtub. Oh my God, the nightmare did
Speaker 2: an end. With their deaths. Police continued their search around
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gaisey's house, where the badly decomposed bodies were
Speaker 2: discovered in the crawl space. Gasey's monstrous acts were concealed
Speaker 2: beneath the floorboards the silence of his house, hiding the
Speaker 2: screams of his victims. In a grotesque twist, Gasey had
Speaker 2: the gall to participate in the search parties for some
Speaker 2: of the boys. He was friendly with their parents. Considered
Speaker 2: an upstanding member of the community. Gaisey's ability to blend
Speaker 2: into society while committing such heinous murders made him one
Speaker 2: of the most terrifying of all serial killers. The friendly neighbor,
Speaker 2: the cheerful clown, and the devoted community member all masks
Speaker 2: that hid the true face of a monster. He had
Speaker 2: set himself up to kill, unfettered and unsuspected, but his
Speaker 2: thirty third murder wouldn't go quite as planned. At about
Speaker 2: nine pm on December eleventh, nineteen seventy eight, Elizabeth Peaste
Speaker 2: drove to pick up her son, a high school sophomore
Speaker 2: and honorable student named Robert, from his job at a
Speaker 2: pharmacy into Plains. Robert Piaste went outside and told her
Speaker 2: to wait a few minutes. He wanted to talk to
Speaker 2: a customer about a summer contracting job that would pay
Speaker 2: him twice what he was currently making. That was the
Speaker 2: last time Elizabeth saw her son. Before midnight, she went
Speaker 2: to the police station to file a missing persons report.
Speaker 2: Police quickly connected the dots and figured out the man
Speaker 2: Robert Peaste was talking to was John Wayne Gacy, whose
Speaker 2: company PDM Contractors had recently remodeled Peaste's pharmacy. They called
Speaker 2: Gaisey into the station for questioning, and Gasey obliged. After
Speaker 2: taking Peace's body and dumping it into the Plains River.
Speaker 2: Within hours, authorities searched Gaisey's home. They didn't find any bodies,
Speaker 2: but they did find evidence that Peast had been there,
Speaker 2: a receipt that belonged to a friend of his. The
Speaker 2: discovery was enough to keep the investigation alive, setting off
Speaker 2: a chain of events that would finally expose Gasey's horrifying secrets.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until December twenty second, nineteen seventy eight, almost
Speaker 2: exactly ten years after his first sodomy conviction, that Gaysey,
Speaker 2: the Killer Clown, confessed to murdering dozens of young men
Speaker 2: and boys. Investigators swarmed his house, uncovering a nightmare scene.
Speaker 2: The crawl Space, a grim graveyard, held twenty nine bodies,
Speaker 2: many decomposed beyond recognition. Dental experts were brought in to
Speaker 2: identify John Wayne Gaisey's victims by their teeth, piecing together
Speaker 2: the chilling puzzle of his horrific crimes. The true extent
Speaker 2: of Gaisey's monstrous acts was finally coming to light, revealing
Speaker 2: a decade of terror hidden beneath a veneer of normalcy.
Speaker 2: Three years later, the Killer Clown attempted to escape justice
Speaker 2: by using an insanity plead during his trial, hoping for
Speaker 2: a not guilty verdict. The jury didn't buy it. Gaysey
Speaker 2: was sentenced to death, and the friendly facade he had
Speaker 2: maintained for all those years finally dropped. He showed no
Speaker 2: remorse for his victims, revealing the true coldness of his character.
Speaker 2: The man who had once charmed his community as a
Speaker 2: jovial clown and a helpful neighbor, was unmasked as a
Speaker 2: remorseless killer awaiting his fate on death row. He looked
Speaker 2: at his victims like he was taking out the trash.
Speaker 2: He had no feelings about them, said Gaisey's lawyer sam
Speaker 2: I Mooranti. He could talk about a child who was
Speaker 2: dying of care, answer and cry like a baby about
Speaker 2: the child that he didn't even know or had never met,
Speaker 2: and feel authentically sad about the child, and then he'd
Speaker 2: talk about another child, one that he murdered, and have
Speaker 2: no feelings whatsoever. John Wayne Gacy spent fourteen years in
Speaker 2: prison awaiting his execution. The night before he was to
Speaker 2: be put to death, he returned to his roots and
Speaker 2: ordered a bucket of Kentucky Fried chicken as his last meal.
Speaker 2: According to reports, the killer clown's last words before his
Speaker 2: execution were, kiss my ass. And that is the terrible
Speaker 2: story of a truly, truly evil man. Now, please stay
Speaker 2: tuned after this short break for my interview with Karen Conti. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 2: welcome to Kind of Murdery. I'm your host, Zevan Odelberg,
Speaker 2: and I'm very excited because I have an extremely fascinating, accomplished,
Speaker 2: incredibly interesting, and frankly strong, principled person here to join
Speaker 2: me today. That is Karen Conti. Some might call her
Speaker 2: a super lawyer, Others might call her a death penalty expert.
Speaker 2: She is that. She's also a fantastic writer. She's written
Speaker 2: a book called Killing Time, about the time she spent
Speaker 2: defending the notorious, infamous, horrific human being, John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 2: while he was on death row. And I have to
Speaker 2: tell you, the book is beautifully written. The prose is concise,
Speaker 2: well paced, The story drives forward almost like a detective novel.
Speaker 2: It's a beautifully, beautifully written book. And yet, and yet
Speaker 2: one of the most difficult books I've ever had to read.
Speaker 2: It kind of ruined my day, not because of Karen
Speaker 2: and not because of how it was written. I mean, frankly,
Speaker 2: it was a page turner. I felt like I was
Speaker 2: reading a thriller. And yet the reality of what Gasey did,
Speaker 2: and even some of the very real moral and judicial
Speaker 2: and legal struggles that Karen and her partner Greg went through,
Speaker 2: it was just emotionally really heavy. For excuse my friends,
Speaker 2: but it was really heavy. Shit.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: It put me in a pretty dark place and I
Speaker 2: read all day and made a lot of noticeable I
Speaker 2: read over a couple of days because frankly, I couldn't
Speaker 2: do it all on one day. It was too much
Speaker 2: for me. Not again, the book's beautifully written, but the
Speaker 2: subject matter is really heavy, and yet it's also extremely
Speaker 2: fascinating and insightful. And so I would like to say
Speaker 2: that I'm very much honored to have Karen on the
Speaker 2: show today to talk about her book Killing Time and
Speaker 2: the time she spent on a one on one basis
Speaker 2: with America's I guess these days, with the fascination that
Speaker 2: we have with serial killers, there could probably be some
Speaker 2: big argument about who the most notorious. But I've covered
Speaker 2: a lot of them, and I got to tell you
Speaker 2: that Gacy was the hardest one for me to get through.
Speaker 2: And with that, Hi, Kartt, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: being here. It's an honor and I can't wait to
Speaker 2: pick your brain about all kinds of stuff. But I
Speaker 2: do appreciate you taking the time to join us here
Speaker 2: on kind of Murdery.
Speaker 3: Nice to be here, and you know, I think what
Speaker 3: you said was about reading it and feeling that darkness.
Speaker 3: You know, people ask me why I waited almost thirty
Speaker 3: years to write the book, and that's exactly why it
Speaker 3: took me so long, Because when I was in that
Speaker 3: dark place and went through all those dark things with
Speaker 3: a dark human being and the darker side of the world,
Speaker 3: you know, you want to just get away from it.
Speaker 3: And I needed that much time to kind of look back.
Speaker 3: And now I'm able to look at it with a
Speaker 3: sense of humor, with a little bit of retrospect, a
Speaker 3: little bit of wisdom, and a little bit of time
Speaker 3: away from it. So I hear you when you make
Speaker 3: those kinds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I really, I really admire the emotional and
Speaker 2: moral strength that you have to have gone through what
Speaker 2: you went through doing that job, which in some ways
Speaker 2: I want to compare you and your partner Gregora Zowski
Speaker 2: to Atticus Finch for being the lawyer with the fortitude
Speaker 2: to stand up and do the job that had to
Speaker 2: be done that no one else wanted to do, and
Speaker 2: for being pilified in the process. On the flip side,
Speaker 2: of course, Atticus was defending an innocent man who was
Speaker 2: the victim of racial prejudice, as where Gaycy was probably
Speaker 2: the least innocent man ever, so so it may not
Speaker 2: be a perfect parallel, but yeah, well.
Speaker 3: I see that lawyers every day take on things that
Speaker 3: are difficult, you know, and I appreciate your comments, but
Speaker 3: that's kind of what we do. We represent people who
Speaker 3: make mistakes, whether they're on you know, you know, whether
Speaker 3: they're beating their wives or a company manufacturing of asbestos.
Speaker 3: You know. We take our clients as we find them,
Speaker 3: and we do our best to get them the best deal.
Speaker 3: And that might be a conviction for life, you know,
Speaker 3: in prison, or it might be an acquittal, or it
Speaker 3: might be something in between. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: we as lawyers have to do that. That's what we're
Speaker 3: tasked to do. That's what we swear under oath when
Speaker 3: we become a lawyer to do.
Speaker 2: You make a great point in the book that it's
Speaker 2: ultimately a slippery slope. If you always make an exception
Speaker 2: for the most obviously guilty person, that obviousness will erode
Speaker 2: to the point where you end up convicting the innocent.
Speaker 2: Right lawyers, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I and I say this, and I've said
Speaker 3: this for years. I understand why people lashed out at me.
Speaker 3: I represented gaycy and people should hate the gaycies of
Speaker 3: the world. People should have rage about somebody who's capable
Speaker 3: of doing these horrible things and taking these young innocent
Speaker 3: men and boys off the face of the earth. I mean,
Speaker 3: the repercussions continue. I mean, I can't be in a
Speaker 3: room with one hundred people in Chicago where there's not
Speaker 3: somebody there who's affected by gaycy. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: I understand that I represent the target, and I just
Speaker 3: hope that people can separate me occasionally from the target
Speaker 3: and say, I get why she did it. I don't
Speaker 3: like the gaycies of the world, but I understand that
Speaker 3: if it were my turn, or my son's turn, or
Speaker 3: I went out and you know, hit a pedestrian and
Speaker 3: killed them and I'm being charged with manslaughter, she's the
Speaker 3: one I want. And you know, constitutional rights are just
Speaker 3: that they're not loopholes, and you're going to want someone
Speaker 3: to fight for you, just as I fought for gaycy.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing over and over. So but I
Speaker 3: do I do understand that some people can't separate those
Speaker 3: two things.
Speaker 2: I agree with you there, And one thing that you
Speaker 2: and I share philosophically is I also a categorically in
Speaker 2: all cases opposed to the death penalty. I wasn't always.
Speaker 2: I can remember being like a young teen and not
Speaker 2: having a very nuanced view of the world and thinking like, well,
Speaker 2: sure if something, if somebody did something bad enough, they
Speaker 2: ought to be executed for it. What I eventually arrived at,
Speaker 2: and for me, I think it was I think in
Speaker 2: part it was reading Tolstoy's War in Peace while I
Speaker 2: was living in India after high school. But I arrived
Speaker 2: at this feeling that only God has the perspective to
Speaker 2: see the full tapestry of human existence. And beyond that,
Speaker 2: the only point really of having a government a state
Speaker 2: is so that, or at least hopefully the point. The
Speaker 2: government is supposed to be better than we are as individuals,
Speaker 2: at least in its laws and the way that it
Speaker 2: administrates and organizes our society and takes care of us. Now,
Speaker 2: that may not be the reality, but that's what it's
Speaker 2: supposed to be. And if it's not, If our collective
Speaker 2: governance is not built on the hope that it's better
Speaker 2: than any one of us, what's the point of it.
Speaker 2: And secondly, or maybe this is thirdly now me personally
Speaker 2: and this is this is sort of a conflict of
Speaker 2: some kind of morality. I have no problem with personal
Speaker 2: retributive or revenge killing, so it's not killing that I'm against.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course I have a problem with it
Speaker 2: in a legal or moral sense on the one hand.
Speaker 2: But if somebody hurt my daughter or somebody who is
Speaker 2: really close to me and my family, I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: a moral issue with going and shooting them myself. But
Speaker 2: I do have a moral issue with society killing people,
Speaker 2: even the worst of them, because they need to be
Speaker 2: society needs to be better than us individually. We have
Speaker 2: the right, I believe, to protect ourselves from danger. But
Speaker 2: I think that that final analysis, and you allude to
Speaker 2: this in your book, but the final analysis of the
Speaker 2: value of any human soul really is left to God alone,
Speaker 2: or if somebody doesn't believe in God per se, then
Speaker 2: I don't know what to call it. Fate the universe,
Speaker 2: but it's beyond our purview or capability to judge the
Speaker 2: purpose and value of an individual human soul. And so
Speaker 2: that's why for me, I have always been against the
Speaker 2: death penalty. And I think you speak beautifully about why
Speaker 2: you have the feelings that you do in your book,
Speaker 2: But I would love it. If you could expound for
Speaker 2: us a little bit now about what that makes you
Speaker 2: believe that the death penalty is so wrong, to the
Speaker 2: point that you devoted a lot of your life dying
Speaker 2: on that hill, as it were, or not dying on
Speaker 2: that hill to make that point, even at times a
Speaker 2: great personal cost to yourself. So could you talk about
Speaker 2: those leafs, the wise warforce, but also how you feel
Speaker 2: about them just emotionally. What does it do to you
Speaker 2: when you think about this issue.
Speaker 3: Well, I've always been against it, even when I was
Speaker 3: a kid, and my parents were both in favor of it.
Speaker 3: So I remember having an argument with my father saying,
Speaker 3: you know, killing somebody for killing somebody is like I
Speaker 3: mess up my room and my mom punishes me by
Speaker 3: messing up my room. So that doesn't make any sense
Speaker 3: to me. It never made any sense, and that was
Speaker 3: just my juvenile thought process. But you know, it's not
Speaker 3: a god thing for me. That's not at all what
Speaker 3: I think about when I think about the death penalty.
Speaker 3: I just think that it doesn't work. You know, if
Speaker 3: it deterred one person from getting killed, or if it
Speaker 3: helped the world in any way, I might I might
Speaker 3: get on board with it, but it's barbaric. I mean,
Speaker 3: we are one of four, you know, four progressive countries
Speaker 3: that have the death penalty. If you go to Europe,
Speaker 3: they are shocked that we have it. They think of
Speaker 3: us as being the most civilized country in the world,
Speaker 3: and we still kill people along with Bangladesh, you know, China, and.
Speaker 2: You know it was in Saudi Arabia. The countries you
Speaker 2: listed were sort of like a bit of an access
Speaker 2: of evil. The ones that are the ones that are
Speaker 2: ahead of us in executing people. It's not necessarily the
Speaker 2: group that you want to be in, as I recall
Speaker 2: from the book, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I guess what I'm saying is that it's
Speaker 3: not just me saying this is this is the rest
Speaker 3: of the world has already come to this conclusion. And
Speaker 3: you know, going back to actual innocence, you know, I
Speaker 3: witnessed this myself after Gasey was executed. He was certainly guilty.
Speaker 3: He was white, so there was no racist prosecution. He
Speaker 3: had really good lawyers throughout the process, so we can't
Speaker 3: say that he had incompetent counsel. And he wasn't poor,
Speaker 3: so he didn't have any of those food groups that
Speaker 3: usually make those death penalty opponents meet on their chests,
Speaker 3: but he represents other people on death row. And when
Speaker 3: I was on death row and I was visiting, I
Speaker 3: realized that there were several people, now that I look back,
Speaker 3: who actually walked off of death row. In fact, twelve
Speaker 3: twelve were executed after gaycy. Twelve walked off of death
Speaker 3: row actual innocence, not technicalities. Somebody else did the crimes.
Speaker 3: Somebody else did the crimes and weren't punished for it.
Speaker 3: During the time period these people were incarcerated, and in
Speaker 3: the case of many of them, they were hours away
Speaker 3: from being executed. So and those people were so guilty, right,
Speaker 3: twelve people, one guy, Twelve jurors found them guilty, not
Speaker 3: only guilty be on a reasonable doubt, but not worthy
Speaker 3: of living. And then the appellate court reversed it, and
Speaker 3: then another twelve convicted, and then another twelve convicted in.
Speaker 2: The case wait wait, I got a pose. Not that
Speaker 2: they were not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but they
Speaker 2: were not worthy of living. Sorry, I don't mean to chuck.
Speaker 2: I don't It's not funny at all, but there's an
Speaker 2: absurdity to it that somehow brings out a chuckle in
Speaker 2: meat when you say that, I mean, and I think
Speaker 2: not to correct you because it's your book and you're
Speaker 2: the expert, but I think that the odds were even worse.
Speaker 2: What I remember reading was that twelve were executed between
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, I think you wrote, and the year
Speaker 2: two thousand, twelve people were executed and thirteen were exonerated.
Speaker 2: So I think the state of Illinois had a less
Speaker 2: than fifty percent getting it right rate during that time,
Speaker 2: if they even got it right across the board, right,
Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely, that's appalling.
Speaker 3: Well, and you also have to understand that the cases
Speaker 3: that where the death penalty is sought are usually cases
Speaker 3: where there are aggravating factors like multiple victims, a little child,
Speaker 3: pregnant none. No, I'm just kidding, but just like you know,
Speaker 3: you've got all those, you know, the aggravating factors, and
Speaker 3: when you have an especially horrific murder, they're all horrific,
Speaker 3: but especially those twelve jurors. I'm telling you. First of all,
Speaker 3: they have to be qualified to get on a death
Speaker 3: penalty jury, which means they believe in the death penalty.
Speaker 3: So everyone who doesn't believe in the death penalty is
Speaker 3: off the jury because you have to be willing to
Speaker 3: give it if the law provides for it. So first
Speaker 3: of all, you're calling out people who are law and order,
Speaker 3: you know, and believe in executions. So then you're looking
Speaker 3: at this defendant who's sitting there, and these jurors are
Speaker 3: saying thesecying these horrific crime scene photos and the victims'
Speaker 3: families and everything else, and they're thinking to themselves, I
Speaker 3: can't possibly let this guy off, even if I have
Speaker 3: a little bit of a reasonable doubt. And that's why
Speaker 3: you have these wrongful convictions in these horrific cases the
Speaker 3: death penalty. People don't get better justice, they get less,
Speaker 3: you know, less competent justice because of the horrendous nature
Speaker 3: and the emotions that are so attendant to these things.
Speaker 2: Confirmation bias essentially. I mean, these days we often decry,
Speaker 2: you know, Google is spying on us all the time,
Speaker 2: so are our smartphones everything else, and basically knows that
Speaker 2: we will engage with something we agree with. So you
Speaker 2: people go to do their research and they basically get
Speaker 2: the first article that says what they already think, and
Speaker 2: that's what they read them there, that's the truth. So basically,
Speaker 2: what I hear you saying is that a pro death
Speaker 2: penalty juror who has been confronted with all this horror
Speaker 2: is way more likely to find someone guilty, right, And
Speaker 2: that that's.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, absolutely, there's there's no question. I mean, and
Speaker 3: there's studies on that. It's not just Karen saying that
Speaker 3: it's the studies will actually show that they're more inclined
Speaker 3: to believe police officers. They're more inclined to to you know,
Speaker 3: to just have the bias against you know, African Americans unfortunately,
Speaker 3: and so there's there's just a whole lot of reasons
Speaker 3: why we get it wrong, and the system is not perfect,
Speaker 3: and when it's not perfect and you make a mistake
Speaker 3: in a death penalty case, that's a pretty serious mistake.
Speaker 3: It's bad enough that people are incarcerated for thirty or
Speaker 3: forty years. I don't think a week goes by in
Speaker 3: Chicago where we don't have two or three you know,
Speaker 3: dudes walking out of prison, you know, having you know,
Speaker 3: been coerced into a confession, or the police you know,
Speaker 3: did something wrong with the evidence, or they had a
Speaker 3: crappy lawyer, or whatever the story or a combination of
Speaker 3: all of them, they're walking off, you know, having spent
Speaker 3: their entire life behind bars. So if we're getting it
Speaker 3: wrong there, we're getting it wrong with the death penalty
Speaker 3: even more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think you allude to in the book
Speaker 2: that the there's a massive, you know, racial disparity in
Speaker 2: who is who is executed for what which crimes. There's
Speaker 2: a massive disparity in what becomes a capital case depending
Speaker 2: on the identity of the defendants, not to mention that
Speaker 2: capital cases are more expensive because of the appeal process.
Speaker 2: These are all things you allude to in the book,
Speaker 2: and I think they're all legitimate things. Some of them
Speaker 2: are more sort of politically charged, especially today, than others,
Speaker 2: which is why I find myself and I always kind
Speaker 2: of have, because I've always been something of an abstract thinker.
Speaker 2: But it's why I find myself gravitating a little bit
Speaker 2: more towards the philosophical reasons. You gave a great one.
Speaker 2: You're a lawyer. It's logic. It literally doesn't make sense
Speaker 2: to kill someone for killing someone. I have that feeling
Speaker 2: that we can protect ourselves from danger but don't have
Speaker 2: the right to actually decide the value of any individual
Speaker 2: human soul, that that's beyond our purview as humans. But
Speaker 2: I think all of these things are totally legitimate reasons
Speaker 2: to be opposed to the death penalty.
Speaker 3: Well, and I don't want to have your listeners think
Speaker 3: that my book is all about that, because it's not.
Speaker 3: And I say, I seek think I said it a
Speaker 3: few times. I'm not going to change anybody's mind about
Speaker 3: the death penalty. That's not my point, because I know
Speaker 3: how we have those hot button issues, whether it's abortion
Speaker 3: or you know, guns or what have you. We're going
Speaker 3: to all have our our opinions. And so, but I
Speaker 3: would be remiss in writing this book not to devote
Speaker 3: a chapter to why I don't believe in the death penalty.
Speaker 3: So I give you my reasons with the idea that
Speaker 3: you can just skip the chapter if you want, because
Speaker 3: I'm not going to change your mind, and I respect that,
Speaker 3: and I think that, you know, I think we're seeing
Speaker 3: a change in how people view the death penalty. I
Speaker 3: think young people would actually an all time low in
Speaker 3: the approval rating for the death penalty. It was usually
Speaker 3: up in the eighties to eighty five percentile would favor
Speaker 3: a death penalty over a life imprisonment for certain murders,
Speaker 3: and now it's way below fifty. And I think our
Speaker 3: young people don't have the stomach for it. I think
Speaker 3: that we're looking around and we're seeing states abolishing it
Speaker 3: or putting a more oreum on it. We're seeing fewer
Speaker 3: prosecutors seeking the death penalty. We're seeing fewer jurors even
Speaker 3: in some of these horrific school shootings, not giving the
Speaker 3: death penalty for one reason or another, because of mental
Speaker 3: illness or bad upbringing, or drug and alcohol, you know,
Speaker 3: in the bloodstream while while pregnant, and all of those
Speaker 3: things you're seeing, you're seeing, and you're seeing a lot
Speaker 3: of jurors saying, listen, not on my dime. I'm not
Speaker 3: doing it. I can't do it. If you want to
Speaker 3: do it, you do it. I'm not doing it. And
Speaker 3: there are people who think it's more punishment to spend
Speaker 3: the rest of your life in prison, as I say,
Speaker 3: in a half a parking lot space. So that could
Speaker 3: very well be worse punishment.
Speaker 2: I've always sort of assumed, thankfully have had no opportunity
Speaker 2: to know, but I've always assumed that life in prison
Speaker 2: would be worse. Although interestingly, reading your book, with someone
Speaker 2: like Gacy, who had a level of celebrity and notoriety
Speaker 2: and money and a sense of humor and a certain
Speaker 2: kind of interpersonal charm and seemingly status among his other inmates.
Speaker 2: It's hard. It was hard for me to determine if
Speaker 2: for a guy like that, life in prison would be
Speaker 2: worse punishment. It seemed like there were at least parts
Speaker 2: of his prison experience. As awful as it was, I'm sure,
Speaker 2: and as terrible as you point out the facilities were,
Speaker 2: it seems like he probably would have preferred life in prison.
Speaker 3: Well, I shouldn't make this argument because it goes against
Speaker 3: the death penalty, you know argument. But I have seen,
Speaker 3: representing criminal defendants going to prisons my entire life, that
Speaker 3: people generally adapt in prison. It's called institutionalization. They at
Speaker 3: first can't stand the idea that, you know, they have
Speaker 3: to be confined and they can't do certain things, but
Speaker 3: then after a while they adapt to it. And I
Speaker 3: find that people who visit prisoners have a harder time
Speaker 3: adapting to watching their loved one, you know, live this
Speaker 3: confined life. But in fact, you know, human beings find
Speaker 3: joy and find pleasure and find satisfaction in the smallest
Speaker 3: of things, whether it's a special meal or going out
Speaker 3: to the yard on a sunny day. And you know,
Speaker 3: it's not that gaycies money bought am any nicer facilities.
Speaker 3: But I do believe the gaysies of the world wanted
Speaker 3: to I mean, he told me he did not want
Speaker 3: to get out of prison, not that that was an option,
Speaker 3: but he said, you know, I read between the lines.
Speaker 3: I don't think he liked not to say that he
Speaker 3: didn't want to kill. He wanted to kill, and if
Speaker 3: he had gotten out, he would have kept kept killing.
Speaker 3: But I think that it got out of control. I
Speaker 3: think a person like Gacy was needed more and more
Speaker 3: to fuel his urges, and he just couldn't take it
Speaker 3: after a while. I mean, there were some nights he
Speaker 3: would go out and kill three boys one after another,
Speaker 3: and then get up and go to work the next day,
Speaker 3: and take drugs to get up and take drugs to
Speaker 3: go to sleep. And you know he had, you know.
Speaker 2: The stress and workload of trying to plan. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: imagine him all under his house, for God's sake, So
Speaker 2: he clearly started running out of ideas about how to
Speaker 2: deal with all these bodies, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm not saying he was remorseful, because he wasn't.
Speaker 3: Don't make any mistake about that. But when he was
Speaker 3: in prison, he lived an orderly life. He could control it.
Speaker 3: He didn't have the urges because he didn't have the opportunities.
Speaker 3: And I think that Gaycy was a happier person in
Speaker 3: prison for that very reason.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so indeed, life in prison would not probably
Speaker 2: would not have been worse punishment for John Wayne Gacy.
Speaker 2: So if we are concerned about punishing evil in his case,
Speaker 2: it may be a good thing that he got the
Speaker 2: death penalty, except that both you and I are across
Speaker 2: the board opposed to the death penalty. But the assumption
Speaker 2: that life in prison is always worse is probably more
Speaker 2: on a case by case basis. Is what I hear
Speaker 2: you say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think, you know, like the Jeffrey
Speaker 3: Epsteins of the world are not going to adapt very
Speaker 3: well to that lifestyle. And whether you think he was
Speaker 3: did it to himself or someone else did it, you know,
Speaker 3: you could see that he wasn't going to farewell in
Speaker 3: a lock up, And yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: You know on that point. So I have a I
Speaker 2: have a friend who has spent most of his life
Speaker 2: in correctional facilities, mostly for drug offenses in the occasional
Speaker 2: armed rob I think, but he's out now, he's out,
Speaker 2: been out for years on parole. But he basically said, yeah,
Speaker 2: you don't want to go into prison as a child molester.
Speaker 2: You're most likely going to get murdered by inmates because
Speaker 2: the only thing that us prisoners hold sacred are our mothers,
Speaker 2: our sisters, and childhood because that's the last time we
Speaker 2: were innocent. So if you violate any of those things,
Speaker 2: we're probably going to take you out ourselves. How do
Speaker 2: you think Gacy managed to avoid being killed by another prisoner?
Speaker 2: Is it just because they bundled him off to hypersecurity
Speaker 2: death row sort of right away? I know, so many
Speaker 2: of the people around him were just nuts. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, nuts is not the most sensitive way to
Speaker 2: put it, but some of them were truly unhinged from
Speaker 2: reality instad like there was a cannibal. I'm not remembering
Speaker 2: everyone's name right now, But how do you think that
Speaker 2: Gacy managed to avoid what is one of the sort
Speaker 2: of standard prisoners taking care of their own business things
Speaker 2: where they go after someone like him blue targeted children.
Speaker 3: Well, he was shanked by one of the one of
Speaker 3: the other inmates, so he was attacked. I don't know
Speaker 3: that there was a purpose for that, because the man
Speaker 3: who attacked him was pretty psychotic and attacked everyone, including
Speaker 3: guards and prisoners and people in the courtroom wherever he went. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that Gaysey because he had some money,
Speaker 3: and he had the ability to buy things at the commissary,
Speaker 3: those little tiny things like being able to buy cigarettes
Speaker 3: or a can of soup for somebody, you can buy
Speaker 3: a little bit of protection. And I think that Gaysey,
Speaker 3: because of his status, you know, is the most prolific
Speaker 3: and the most famous and the one with the most money.
Speaker 3: I think that others knew that they could get something
Speaker 3: from him. I mean, people who are antisocial in their personalities,
Speaker 3: are they everyone's a pawn to them, and you know
Speaker 3: Gaysey was no different. Everyone in his surrounding area was
Speaker 3: of use to him, so you know he was. He
Speaker 3: was a master manipulator, and so are all these other
Speaker 3: So I think that there is a hierarchy there and
Speaker 3: in a way of living and a way of protection
Speaker 3: that's kind of foreign to us because we don't have
Speaker 3: to do that. We're not surrounded by predators necessarily, and
Speaker 3: so Gaysey managed to do that. But you know, Gaysey
Speaker 3: didn't really walk around very much. I mean, he kind
Speaker 3: of kept to himself, and he didn't go outside even
Speaker 3: when he was allowed to, just because he feared for
Speaker 3: his safety. So he was pretty savvy when it came
Speaker 3: to protecting.
Speaker 2: Himself, right, So he knew what might happen to him
Speaker 2: if somebody had the chance.
Speaker 3: Sure, and understand this, the people on death row were
Speaker 3: all all did really bad things, kill women, rape women,
Speaker 3: epe women. I mean, there were no choir boys in
Speaker 3: this group here, So I don't know how you look
Speaker 3: down your nose on somebody who did this when he
Speaker 3: did that.
Speaker 2: So you reference many times in the book too that
Speaker 2: he had And maybe this is counterintuitive, maybe it's not
Speaker 2: because we seem to know so much of about serial
Speaker 2: killers these days in terms of the pop culture fascination.
Speaker 2: That he had this sense of humor and this charm
Speaker 2: that was in some ways sort of irrepressible. So the
Speaker 2: first time we went to see him, you and your
Speaker 2: partner Greg were served the prison lunch, the same lunch
Speaker 2: that Gaysey got. So tell the listeners, how does that work?
Speaker 2: Why were you guys eating prison lunch? And Gasey had
Speaker 2: a joke for you that I thought was pretty clever,
Speaker 2: but I'd rather have you tell that story if you
Speaker 2: don't mind.
Speaker 3: So the first time we went to visit Gacy, it
Speaker 3: was about noon and Gasey we knew that lunch was served.
Speaker 3: So Gasey went and he came back with three trays,
Speaker 3: and so we each had a lunch. And I said, oh,
Speaker 3: that's really nice, John, like, is the prison paying for this?
Speaker 3: Who's paying for this? He said, oh, no, No, we
Speaker 3: have this rule on death row if we have guests,
Speaker 3: then somebody else who doesn't have a guest that day
Speaker 3: will sacrifice the lunch for the guest, and then when
Speaker 3: it's their turn to have a guest, I would sacrifice
Speaker 3: my lunch. And I go, oh, oh that's that's nice.
Speaker 3: It's a nice little rule. And he said you know yeah.
Speaker 3: So I said, well, who sacrificed their lunch for me?
Speaker 3: And he looked right at me and he said, Charles Albanie. Well,
Speaker 3: if you're in Illinois, you know who Charles Albanie is.
Speaker 3: He poisoned his entire family with about two pounds of
Speaker 3: arsenic So so and then, of course I realized he
Speaker 3: was joking. That was the first big joke that he told,
Speaker 3: and I realized that Gacy really did have a sense
Speaker 3: of humor. And you know, I have to be careful
Speaker 3: talking about this because I don't want to have people say, well, Karen,
Speaker 3: did you really think what he did was funny? You know,
Speaker 3: obviously I don't think what he did was funny, But
Speaker 3: I also would be remiss in a book about gaycy
Speaker 3: if I didn't mention and didn't talk about his sense
Speaker 3: of humor, because it was one of the most blatant
Speaker 3: traits he had. And I really believe that he was
Speaker 3: able to deflect a lot of his darkness, a lot
Speaker 3: of his lying, a lot of his bad deeds and
Speaker 3: just you know, bad whatever with that sense of humor.
Speaker 3: And you know, everyone wants to be around somebody who's funny,
Speaker 3: who's telling jokes, who's quipping back and forth. And sure,
Speaker 3: my guess is that this sense of humor served him
Speaker 3: very well during the time he was committing these crimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, I mean it is true that who doesn't
Speaker 2: list sense of humor? And I think you say this
Speaker 2: in the book too, but who doesn't list sense of
Speaker 2: humor as a desirable quality in a friend or a
Speaker 2: partner or a romantic partner. Almost everyone the world over
Speaker 2: likes someone with a sense of humor. I think you
Speaker 2: bring up an interesting point here too, and it's something
Speaker 2: that I've talked about on this show quite a bit,
Speaker 2: which is that different people have different prom or responses.
Speaker 2: Maybe trauma's even the wrong word, but just the experience
Speaker 2: of being confronted with something that is very dark or
Speaker 2: difficult to emotionally process, like reading the story of John
Speaker 2: Wayne Gacy. And what I find is that there are
Speaker 2: those when darkness is sort of shoved at them, will
Speaker 2: will react with anger and horror and moral reprobation. All
Speaker 2: of those things are absolutely legitimate find ways to respond.
Speaker 2: And then there are others who will take that stress
Speaker 2: and try to release it by finding a way to
Speaker 2: laugh at it. And I try not to judge the
Speaker 2: way that people process emotional trauma, because I think that
Speaker 2: everybody's different and that both of those can be legitimate responses.
Speaker 2: I know on this show there have been times where
Speaker 2: I find myself laughing at something, not because I actually
Speaker 2: think it's funny, but because that sort of nervous laughter
Speaker 2: is almost like a way to protect myself. So I
Speaker 2: thought that that was a really interesting part of your book,
Speaker 2: talk about humor faced with darkness, what it means to you,
Speaker 2: how it helps you, how it makes you feel. I'd
Speaker 2: love to hear more about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my father was a stand up comic. He was
Speaker 3: a child actor when he was young in Hollywood, and
Speaker 3: then he did stand up for the whole time we
Speaker 3: grew up. That's how he made his living. So growing
Speaker 3: up and I didn't know it was abnormal to grow
Speaker 3: up in a family with a comedian as a father,
Speaker 3: but I realize now it was a very unusual situation
Speaker 3: because my dad's livelihood was based upon making people laugh.
Speaker 3: And so during the course of the day, no matter
Speaker 3: what we were doing, he was trying out new materially,
Speaker 3: he was trying out different different things, and he was
Speaker 3: trying to make people laugh. And that was just something
Speaker 3: that came very naturally to him. And I think that
Speaker 3: if you get to know me, I have a little
Speaker 3: bit of that in me. Certainly not to the level
Speaker 3: of my father, But I'm always looking for the punchline.
Speaker 3: I'm always looking for something that's funny about something serious.
Speaker 3: And when you practice law, and you see the tragedies
Speaker 3: that happen to people, the things that they do to
Speaker 3: each other, the things that the system does to the
Speaker 3: people who do bad things, the people that who are
Speaker 3: the victims to all these horrible crimes. If you don't
Speaker 3: have a coping mechanism, you're going to be in deep trouble.
Speaker 3: And you know, lawyers have a high rate of drug
Speaker 3: and alcohol abuse. I think it's one of the highest
Speaker 3: of any profession. It's rampant in in the bar, literally
Speaker 3: the bar, so pardon the pun. See my dad, that
Speaker 3: was my dad. So you know, I think that you
Speaker 3: know you you you were either exercise, you either drink,
Speaker 3: or you have a way of deflecting this. And it's
Speaker 3: gallows humor in two words, gallows humor. And you know
Speaker 3: what that means. It means someone's going to the gallows
Speaker 3: and you're you're laughing about it because you're you're nervous,
Speaker 3: and it's not it's not something you want to see,
Speaker 3: but you're you're making fun of it. And and Gacy
Speaker 3: was big on making fun of even himself. He was
Speaker 3: self effacing. He I'll tell you one situation where I
Speaker 3: came to visit him one day and I had seen
Speaker 3: the Phil Donahue Show, which was the precursor to the
Speaker 3: all the talk shows back in the day, and I said,
Speaker 3: I saw this woman and she said she was going
Speaker 3: to marry you. I said, John, what are you playing
Speaker 3: for both teams? What's up? He goes, Oh, he goes,
Speaker 3: that's Sue Terry. He goes, Yeah, she was my pen
Speaker 3: pal for a while. You know, she wanted to marry me.
Speaker 3: But you know, she's got two kids and they're both
Speaker 3: in the penitentiary. Like I'm going to marry into a
Speaker 3: family like that. When you hear gasey joke, you realize
Speaker 3: what you know, if you're analyzing it, humor shouldn't be analyzed.
Speaker 3: But he was making fun of himself, and in so
Speaker 3: doing you felt a little bit of connection with him
Speaker 3: because I'm laughing at him, he's laughing at himself. It
Speaker 3: breaks the ice. And so you can see that that's
Speaker 3: just a really valuable tool in your box. And I
Speaker 3: you know, people say, you know, I mean some of
Speaker 3: the jokes that he told me in the book are
Speaker 3: pretty you know, not you know, they're.
Speaker 2: Blue if you're blue. Yeah, And I.
Speaker 3: Didn't even put the really blue ones in there. Because
Speaker 3: I didn't want to offend everybody the book, some of them,
Speaker 3: but you know, and everyone says, well, didn't you get offended. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, I probably would have been offended you know
Speaker 3: today in today's times. But you know, back then, it
Speaker 3: was like I grew up in a law firm thirty
Speaker 3: seven years ago, where men would call me abroad, you know,
Speaker 3: they had.
Speaker 2: Like smash your ass, like there was just any of that.
Speaker 3: You know. And and so I I have a really
Speaker 3: high tolerance for, you know, jokes and swear words and
Speaker 3: calling people names and stuff like that. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: if you don't mean, if you don't mean to hurt me,
Speaker 3: then I don't care about your words hurting me because
Speaker 3: they're not going to hurt me.
Speaker 2: On the subject of humor, your father was a comedian,
Speaker 2: as you said, and I read in the book that
Speaker 2: he was living with you when you were representing Gaysey,
Speaker 2: and that he and Gasey developed quite a relationship over
Speaker 2: the phone. Can you talk about that a little bit, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, my dad was living with us. He had
Speaker 3: some health issues at the time, and my dad was
Speaker 3: in favor of the death penalty. My dad didn't like
Speaker 3: the fact that his favorite daughter was getting ready to
Speaker 3: represent the most notorious Tero Keller and had a few
Speaker 3: words with me about that, and you know, basically said
Speaker 3: this guy should be executed. He killed all those kids,
Speaker 3: you know. Ah. Well, Gacy started calling the house, and
Speaker 3: you know, he would call when my dad was there,
Speaker 3: and my dad would pick up the phone, and they
Speaker 3: started a little bit of a relationship. And it was
Speaker 3: funny because Gaycy was funny and my dad was funny.
Speaker 3: So they would sit there and go back and forth,
Speaker 3: telling each other jokes, making fun of each other. And
Speaker 3: one day I walked in and I realized that there's
Speaker 3: my dad. I could tell he's talking to Gacy. I
Speaker 3: can almost hear on the phone. And I heard my
Speaker 3: dad say, you know, John, you know, do you know
Speaker 3: what you're going to have for your last supper? And
Speaker 3: you know, you could hear Gaycy's I'm not sure yet
Speaker 3: or something, and my dad says, you know what, John,
Speaker 3: you should have fresh strawberries. And you could hear Gacy go, why, Joe,
Speaker 3: why should I have fresh strawberries? And my dad said,
Speaker 3: because they're out a season. So anyway, so when you
Speaker 3: start to get to know somebody, even somebody as evil
Speaker 3: as Gacy. Even somebody with an antisocial personality, you develop
Speaker 3: a little bit of a bond. There's humanity there, even
Speaker 3: though what Gaysey did was horribly inhumane. My father at
Speaker 3: the end was very upset when he was executed, very upset.
Speaker 3: Same with my office staff. They did not want to
Speaker 3: pick up the phone for him. They didn't want to.
Speaker 3: You know, a couple of them wanted to quit because
Speaker 3: they did not want to deal with John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 3: or tell their friends they were dealing with it. But
Speaker 3: by the end, when Gaycy had spoken to all of them,
Speaker 3: you know, at one time or another and told jokes
Speaker 3: and you know, had you know, sent him a Christmas card,
Speaker 3: and they were very upset too. So the moral of
Speaker 3: that story is that once you experience humanity, and Gacy
Speaker 3: had humanity. He had a life where he was married
Speaker 3: and he had children, and he was a hard worker,
Speaker 3: and he you know, volunteered for the church, and he
Speaker 3: was a political guy, and he did these things that
Speaker 3: were pretty good, and then he did these things that
Speaker 3: were really for it.
Speaker 2: So I mean so bad that I've done a lot
Speaker 2: of serial killers, I gotta tell you. Because you have
Speaker 2: extremely graphic descriptions of what he actually did contained in
Speaker 2: your book, and I found Gacy's crimes to be the
Speaker 2: hardest to take when described to me of any serial
Speaker 2: killer that I personally have covered on this show or
Speaker 2: read about. Like I don't know if that's just my
Speaker 2: own personal visceral reactions, but for me, he's like heads
Speaker 2: and shoulders above Dahmer or Bundy or pretty much just
Speaker 2: anybody else that I've covered. Anyway, there's a difference between
Speaker 2: murdering somebody and making sure that they suffer as much
Speaker 2: as possible when they're being killed. The fact that he
Speaker 2: would essentially waterboard them, which is something that at the
Speaker 2: time we didn't know so much about later post nine
Speaker 2: to eleven and all the questions about torture we do now,
Speaker 2: but he was essentially waterboarding them while raping them, while
Speaker 2: strangling them. Today, I mean, I don't even really want
Speaker 2: to get into it, but my god, my god. But
Speaker 2: it's an interesting thing you say about humanity, because we
Speaker 2: very often as humans, when we're confronted with somebody whose
Speaker 2: behavior is truly monstrous, we want to divorce that from ourselves.
Speaker 2: We say, he's not even human, he's a monster. It
Speaker 2: seems to me that monstrosity, especially the kind that wants
Speaker 2: to harm others, other people in terrible ways, is a
Speaker 2: uniquely human trait. Tortureous sociopathy and psychopathy and murder is
Speaker 2: not something that you see in nature or among other organisms.
Speaker 2: It's something that people do. It's very human. How did
Speaker 2: you feel thinking about Gacy's humanity versus monstrosity when you
Speaker 2: were both representing him, or even just in the room
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 3: Well, I never saw Gacy as a monster in that
Speaker 3: whenever I was with him, he was being normal. He
Speaker 3: was acting as a normal human being. So I knew
Speaker 3: what he did, and I knew in great detail what
Speaker 3: he did. I read all about it, I saw the
Speaker 3: pictures I saw, I lived in for years before I
Speaker 3: even met John Wayne Gacy. So how I look at
Speaker 3: it is this just because Gaysey did things that were
Speaker 3: inhumane doesn't mean there wasn't a human sense of him.
Speaker 3: His family loved him. At the end of the execution,
Speaker 3: at when we were saying our goodbyes, their families streamed in.
Speaker 3: They unconditionally loved him. He had neighbors and friends and
Speaker 3: family who loved him despite what he did. So I
Speaker 3: understood at that point why it was so difficult for
Speaker 3: me when Gaysey was getting ready to be executed, because
Speaker 3: I knew Gaycy as a human. I knew that human
Speaker 3: part of him, and as a human being. It's you know,
Speaker 3: we all say this, Oh, I could kill him. I
Speaker 3: don't like that again I take him out and shoot him,
Speaker 3: or my ex wife, Yeah, you know. But when you
Speaker 3: get to know somebody, when you get to know somebody
Speaker 3: and break spread with them and talk to them, in
Speaker 3: my case, trying to save somebody's life, you don't want
Speaker 3: them dead. That's just not a human reaction. I don't
Speaker 3: want to kill a deer. I don't want to kill anything.
Speaker 3: Because I'm human. That makes me a human being. And
Speaker 3: so I can hate what Gaysey did that was inhumane
Speaker 3: to those boys, because that's not human that when he
Speaker 3: was doing that. You want to call him a monster,
Speaker 3: you want to call him in human, you want to
Speaker 3: call him you want to call him damaged? Do you
Speaker 3: want to call him whatever? You want to call him.
Speaker 3: But the Gaycy that I spent time with was a
Speaker 3: human being. I did not want him to be excested.
Speaker 2: So but I would argue that those horrible things that
Speaker 2: he did were human in the sense that humans almost
Speaker 2: uniquely among animals in the animal kingdom, only humans do
Speaker 2: that awful stuff. We have serial killers, no other animal does.
Speaker 2: So I feel like we as a society as humanity
Speaker 2: as creatures, rather than saying there's a human gaycy and
Speaker 2: an inhuman we need to be willing to say that
Speaker 2: even monstrosity is in fact human and can't be divorced
Speaker 2: from what we are as much as we would like
Speaker 2: it to be. Don't you think that Gacy weaponized his
Speaker 2: ability to be charming and funny and to show people
Speaker 2: his humanity. I mean that that was one of his
Speaker 2: key assets in committing the crimes that he committed.
Speaker 3: I think he had two parts of them. I don't
Speaker 3: think the average human being wants to go around killing people.
Speaker 3: They just don't.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't.
Speaker 3: I couldn't be a John Wayne Gacy if you paid
Speaker 3: me money. I think I'd rather die myself than to
Speaker 3: do stuff like that. Absolutely, So my point is that
Speaker 3: he wasn't all that person. You know, and I've met
Speaker 3: a lot of people like this. They're perfectly good people.
Speaker 3: They do like everything right, they're nice to people. And
Speaker 3: then they beat their wives, and then you look back
Speaker 3: and you figure out why maybe and not that you're
Speaker 3: going to excuse it. Maybe he'll explain it though, And
Speaker 3: and you sit there and you go, that guy's a
Speaker 3: wife beater, but like he's a human being. Like it's hard,
Speaker 3: it's hard to have those two things coexist. But I
Speaker 3: think in some people they do. I really do. Gasey
Speaker 3: was not a consistent person. When you're an antisocial person,
Speaker 3: you do what other people think you should should do.
Speaker 3: You know, he mimics human emotion because his human emotion
Speaker 3: is really messed up, whether it was because of something
Speaker 3: he was born with or the number of things that
Speaker 3: happened to him when he was young that caused him
Speaker 3: to be what he was. But he was still a
Speaker 3: human being. And that's why when it came down to
Speaker 3: the very end of this, it's very, very difficult to
Speaker 3: have somebody, you know, execute it. I will just tell
Speaker 3: you that.
Speaker 2: I hear everything you're saying about him being a complex
Speaker 2: person and the humanity that he was able to demonstrate.
Speaker 2: I just wonder how much of that do you think
Speaker 2: was purely performative in terms of knowing what he needed
Speaker 2: to do, because he was very smart and wanting to
Speaker 2: elicit particular reactions from others. And how much of it
Speaker 2: do you think was genuine? Do you feel like he
Speaker 2: had real affection for you and Greg andst certain others,
Speaker 2: or that he just knew what he needed to do
Speaker 2: to make himself look good or how he wanted to
Speaker 2: look in a particular moment.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say. Will I can only tell you
Speaker 3: what I felt from him, and I think that at
Speaker 3: first when I met him, he was very much on
Speaker 3: the surface, But as I got to know him, I
Speaker 3: think I got to him a little bit. He is,
Speaker 3: you know, he loved his mother. He had two sisters
Speaker 3: whom he loved. He had two wives who he got
Speaker 3: along with very well until he divorced them. Gasey loved women.
Speaker 3: He loved his mother, he loved his two wives, he
Speaker 3: loved his two sisters. And he and I had a
Speaker 3: little bit of a bond because I would get through
Speaker 3: some of the stuff with him and I'd say, Gacy,
Speaker 3: you know what, just tell me the truth for one
Speaker 3: just let's get let's cut the crap, and let's tell
Speaker 3: me about this. Did you love your father? Did you
Speaker 3: hate him? What's story? Why did you do this, why
Speaker 3: you know? And so I think he and I I
Speaker 3: think he did have a little bit affection for me.
Speaker 3: I can't speak for the other people, but I definitely,
Speaker 3: you know, we had a couple bonding moments about different
Speaker 3: things in our lives. I'm an mpath So you know,
Speaker 3: your listeners are probably going like, oh, you're your friends.
Speaker 2: Oh you're one of those people who makes everybody's trauma
Speaker 2: about the Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty realistic about who people are. I mean, I
Speaker 3: never I mean case who was associopath. I know all
Speaker 3: about it. You know, I read.
Speaker 2: Absolutely narcissist.
Speaker 3: He's a borderline, he's you know, he he was. He
Speaker 3: was a bad dude. Like that's that's not an issue.
Speaker 3: But what I'm telling you, and I'll tell the story
Speaker 3: really quickly. I taught the death penalty class for a
Speaker 3: number of years at the University of Illinois. I had
Speaker 3: a number of students. Every year, I take a poll,
Speaker 3: how many are you in favor? How many are against?
Speaker 3: We had a lot of people who were in favor
Speaker 3: of it. And part of the project was I would
Speaker 3: hook up my students with a lawyer who was handling
Speaker 3: a death penalty case on Illinois death row, and the
Speaker 3: student could do whatever they want. They could go visit
Speaker 3: the guy. They could write briefs, they could talk to
Speaker 3: the lawyer like a look at the case, they could
Speaker 3: talk to the victims. They whatever they wanted to do.
Speaker 3: They would write some report, give a little bit of
Speaker 3: an oral presentation. At the end of the class, I'll
Speaker 3: let him do whatever they wanted. So at the end
Speaker 3: of the class, every year, every single student, even the
Speaker 3: ones who were wildly in favor of the death penalty,
Speaker 3: there's not a single one who met and talked to
Speaker 3: the death row inmates who said they believed in the
Speaker 3: death penalty for their guy. And this is the significance
Speaker 3: when you get to know somebody, when you talk to somebody,
Speaker 3: when you deal with that person's humanity, despite his inhumane acts,
Speaker 3: you don't want him to die.
Speaker 2: At one point in the book, you talk about representing
Speaker 2: Gacy on death row and how it was important even
Speaker 2: though you and everyone felt like he was obviously guilty
Speaker 2: of these horrible things. You compare it to a pool,
Speaker 2: basically saying that as we test the strength of these
Speaker 2: various arguments and counter arguments, even if it doesn't work
Speaker 2: out for Gayy we're trying to put the ball in
Speaker 2: the corner pocket because it may help another inmate who
Speaker 2: perhaps is innocent or not as guilty and deserves to help.
Speaker 2: We're laying groundwork for someone else, if not gazy. The
Speaker 2: question I had for you there as you were writing
Speaker 2: the book, how much did you struggle with, think about,
Speaker 2: agonize over the metaphors that you chose to use. I
Speaker 2: think this is a pretty apt one, but I also
Speaker 2: find when talking about really emotionally intense topics, it can
Speaker 2: be really difficult to pick the right analogy or metaphor.
Speaker 3: Well, I've used that a lot, and I use it.
Speaker 3: I actually use that analysis yesterday with a client of mind.
Speaker 3: We were trying to strategize about what to do in
Speaker 3: court and how to approach a particular problem, and I said,
Speaker 3: why don't we file the motion, because if we don't
Speaker 3: win it, then at least we have the judge's attention
Speaker 3: that this is an issue, and then the next time
Speaker 3: we have an issue, the judge is going to pay
Speaker 3: better attention to it. And that's the same thing. You
Speaker 3: want to get the ball in the pocket, but if
Speaker 3: you get in the pocket, you still want to set
Speaker 3: it up for the next shot, so you have a
Speaker 3: clear shot to get the next ball in, or if
Speaker 3: you miss the pocket, at least you know you think
Speaker 3: about setting it up for the next shot. So so
Speaker 3: I think I've used that analogy a lot, and it
Speaker 3: really is very apt because not everything you do is
Speaker 3: going to win, but you have to be strategic even
Speaker 3: if you are sure that you're not going to win.
Speaker 3: And frankly, this case was all about not winning. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I wasn't that naive as a twenty eight
Speaker 3: twenty nine year old lawyer that I was going to
Speaker 3: you know, beat the system. And Gasey wasn't going to
Speaker 3: be executed. I mean, he was going to be executed.
Speaker 3: My thought in this whole process was I want to
Speaker 3: stand up against the death penalty. I don't believe it.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I'm going to change anyone's mind,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to get researched and I'm going to
Speaker 3: get articulate, and I'm going to be an advocate against
Speaker 3: the death penalty and maybe, just maybe I'm going to
Speaker 3: help these other people on death row, not just in
Speaker 3: Illinois but other states who might have actual innocence and
Speaker 3: racist prosecution, etc. So when you are handling a death
Speaker 3: penalty case, you really are representing the cause as well
Speaker 3: as you're defendant. And when you think about things on
Speaker 3: those terms, then it's bigger than you, and it's bigger
Speaker 3: than you're defendant. You know, I argue before the US
Speaker 3: Supreme Court, and I will tell you that you're not
Speaker 3: just advocating for your defendant or plaintiff. You are changing
Speaker 3: the law. You're asking the court to interpret the law
Speaker 3: of the nation, and going forward, the law is going
Speaker 3: to be different because of you. And so that's how
Speaker 3: important it is. It's almost like you're lobbying a branch
Speaker 3: of government to make a change. So I felt the
Speaker 3: same way about Gaysy, that this was a cause and
Speaker 3: not just a defendant.
Speaker 2: You make the point that you often would endeavor not
Speaker 2: to let your clients suck up too much of your time, attention,
Speaker 2: and emotional energy, because criminals and inmates can be something
Speaker 2: of energy vampires. But then you say, when Gacy only
Speaker 2: had about seven months to live, the finality of that,
Speaker 2: you found yourself giving him more of your energy, emotional energy,
Speaker 2: time and attention than you would have for another client.
Speaker 2: Is that the whole truth of why you did that,
Speaker 2: knowing that you had always been fascinated with serial killers,
Speaker 2: did you find yourself sometimes emotionally or cognitively wanting to
Speaker 2: sort of separate your intellectual excitement lifelong interest from how
Speaker 2: you were feeling about it in other ways? What was
Speaker 2: the emotional experience of all of that, Like.
Speaker 3: I let Gacy, you know, take more of my time
Speaker 3: because of the finality. That was one thing. And maybe
Speaker 3: it was just like feeling bad for him in a way,
Speaker 3: because I mean it wasn't like he was pathetic or that,
Speaker 3: you know, there was a lot of sympathy because he
Speaker 3: did what he did and he was facing what he
Speaker 3: was facing. But I just thought to myself too that
Speaker 3: I am fascinated by him. I'm fascinated with these conversations,
Speaker 3: and I'm fascinated with maybe getting an answer from him
Speaker 3: before he dies. And at some point in the book
Speaker 3: I said something to him along those lines, because he
Speaker 3: wasn't owning up to what he did, and I said, well,
Speaker 3: how did those kids get in your efing crass space anyway? John,
Speaker 3: you know, And then he'd make his joke like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm the only thing I'm guilty of is running a
Speaker 3: cemetery without a license, and then I just say, no, John,
Speaker 3: tell me how did they make? No? So I was
Speaker 3: I was trying to get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 3: I would love, I would have loved for him to
Speaker 3: tell me why he did what he did, or what
Speaker 3: compelled him, or what it was like, or what he
Speaker 3: thinks did his father create the monster that he became?
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted an answer, and I thought if
Speaker 3: I spent some time with him, maybe I'll get that
Speaker 3: answer because I wanted it. I wanted to know what
Speaker 3: happened when I saw a picture of him as a
Speaker 3: young boy and I got to know his family, that's
Speaker 3: another story. You know. That family was, you know, fairly normal,
Speaker 3: and his sister was a lovely person, totally moral person,
Speaker 3: lived a great, upright life, was a good mother and grandmother,
Speaker 3: loved her brother, had no idea what was going on,
Speaker 3: had to this day, you know, just could never figure
Speaker 3: out what happened to him. And I just think, what
Speaker 3: happened to you, John, what happened along the way that
Speaker 3: made you what you became? Because I don't believe that
Speaker 3: he was born that way, and so I think that
Speaker 3: was part of my uh, that combination of all of
Speaker 3: that the fascination, the finite amount of days he had
Speaker 3: left to live, and that I gave him the time
Speaker 3: and I don't regret it at all.
Speaker 2: And that dovetails into my next question, which and it's
Speaker 2: something you actually address, I think quite elegantly in the book,
Speaker 2: But how do you feel about the fact that much
Speaker 2: of your success and fame is linked to one of
Speaker 2: the most horrific and terrible killers of all time? How
Speaker 2: much do you think about that? Is that a weight
Speaker 2: you feel like you carry on your shoulders? Have you
Speaker 2: made your piece with it? How do you feel about
Speaker 2: your connection with John Wayne Gacy today?
Speaker 3: Well, somebody told me that I should stop saying that
Speaker 3: I've had success in the media or in my career
Speaker 3: or is an academic because of Gaycy. The better way
Speaker 3: to say it, according to my friend, is that the
Speaker 3: fact that you represented Gaysey put you in the spotlight.
Speaker 3: You handled yourself well, you educated yourself, you handled yourself
Speaker 3: with dignity, and people respected you after that. I think
Speaker 3: that's part of it. But I also think that in
Speaker 3: our society, when you're associated with someone who's a household word,
Speaker 3: whether it's valid or not, they think more of you.
Speaker 3: So you know, Kim Kardashian is famous for what we
Speaker 3: don't really quite know, but she certainly is. And she
Speaker 3: took that to the bank. And I don't have any
Speaker 3: problem with that. You know, it is what it is.
Speaker 3: But I think that, you know, I am like a
Speaker 3: legal novelty. I think that Gaycy. You know, someone seems
Speaker 3: to think that because John Gaycy chose me. Here's a
Speaker 3: guy who had made a lot of bad choices in life,
Speaker 3: and he chose me to be his lawyer. And I
Speaker 3: took the case and I lost it famously, and he
Speaker 3: was executed the exact minute he was supposed to be executed.
Speaker 3: I didn't save him one minute, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: now I'm a better lawyer. That's the perception that we
Speaker 3: have in this country. I'm a designer lawyer. You know,
Speaker 3: the Alan dershowitzz of the world. They lose a lot
Speaker 3: of their cases.
Speaker 2: You had the guts to take on the unwinnable case
Speaker 2: and to wade through those waters and to go through
Speaker 2: that emotional hell and do the job that most people
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to or were afraid to do. And I
Speaker 2: think I think that's why people see you as a
Speaker 2: better lawyer. In my mind, you didn't really lose, because
Speaker 2: it was already lost. But anybody would want a hard nosed,
Speaker 2: super intelligent attorney that was going to be willing to
Speaker 2: jump into the trenches and fight an unwinnable battle for
Speaker 2: them because of the courage and acumen that it takes.
Speaker 2: And so I think that you should be commanded for that.
Speaker 2: But that's also why I think people see you as
Speaker 2: a better lawyer that and yes, we have a fast
Speaker 2: nation with celebrity, there's no question about that. So one
Speaker 2: of the most chilling moments in the book for me,
Speaker 2: I found you described talking to Gacy and about killing
Speaker 2: all these young boys and men, and he said to you,
Speaker 2: the hard part isn't the killing, it's finding the people
Speaker 2: who aren't going to be missed. And that just kind
Speaker 2: of made the hair stand up on my arms and
Speaker 2: my stomach drop and something there about just the vulnerability
Speaker 2: of the disenfranchised. And in the book you describe how
Speaker 2: for your entire life ever since, you have these recurring
Speaker 2: nightmares of his final victim, Robert Peaste, and what the
Speaker 2: family went through and how he died, And for me,
Speaker 2: that was so movingly illustrative of who you are inside
Speaker 2: and emotionally and the weight and the toll that this
Speaker 2: has taken on you. So for those people out there
Speaker 2: that think you're an opportunist reptilian who's taking advantage of
Speaker 2: a horrific murderer, read the book. Not at all the case.
Speaker 2: I think, Karen. Seems to me that you've dealt with
Speaker 2: a lot of emotional torment and all kinds of stuff
Speaker 2: related to having gone through this difficult experience that most
Speaker 2: people wouldn't have either the fortitude, courage or desire to do.
Speaker 2: Talk just really briefly, if you would, about this idea
Speaker 2: of the hard part is finding the people who won't
Speaker 2: be missed, and how that sort of dovetails with the
Speaker 2: way that you find his victims on your mind or
Speaker 2: in your dreams.
Speaker 3: Well, Gasey was a predator. He had a type. He
Speaker 3: was instinctive, and as most predators are. I was just
Speaker 3: on a safari in Africa and I watched it in action,
Speaker 3: and I watched how predators responded to things. And you know,
Speaker 3: if there was an injured bird, the leopard was going
Speaker 3: to get that bird. And you know, I watched a
Speaker 3: hippopotamus had broken leg, and I watched how you know,
Speaker 3: the animals came in, and then the hyenas came and
Speaker 3: then the vultures came in. So I know that in
Speaker 3: Gaysey's world, he was predator, and he knew instinctively who
Speaker 3: would be missed and who would not be missed. And
Speaker 3: he made a mistake with Robert Peaste because he was
Speaker 3: ramping up and he was losing control. And Robert Peaste
Speaker 3: was left at a drug store with his mother in
Speaker 3: a car running whose birthday it was, and they were
Speaker 3: going to go back home and celebrate the mother's birthday.
Speaker 3: And Gasey took that kid to his house and killed
Speaker 3: him within probably an hour. And he was the reason,
Speaker 3: Robert Peaste was the reason that Gaycy was finally caught,
Speaker 3: because his mother was sitting there and knew where he was.
Speaker 3: And so I think that you're seeing you see this
Speaker 3: all the time. The Gilgo Beach murder. He did the
Speaker 3: same thing as Gacy. He found the marginalized part of society,
Speaker 3: the sex workers, the women who were slight in stature.
Speaker 3: Even though he was six ' four or whatever he was,
Speaker 3: he wanted the small women because then he could overcome them.
Speaker 3: He was a predator. He is a predator. So I
Speaker 3: think that these people do things that we don't even know.
Speaker 3: We couldn't even do that. We couldn't even do that
Speaker 3: by thinking it all out and planning it. These people,
Speaker 3: it's the way they roll. And as to the victims,
Speaker 3: I have, you know, a lot of space I think
Speaker 3: dedicated talking about victims because I represent victims all the time.
Speaker 3: I represent people who are sexually abused, I represent people
Speaker 3: who are beaten by their husbands. I represent people who
Speaker 3: want to get someone prosecuted. And because I am, you know,
Speaker 3: somewhat prominent in my community, legally I can go to
Speaker 3: the state's attorney and talk to them about getting something prosecuted.
Speaker 3: So I've done or using my media connections to get
Speaker 3: the word out that somebody should be prosecuted. I'm happy
Speaker 3: to do that because when I'm playing, when I'm the
Speaker 3: manager of a baseball team, I can only coach one side.
Speaker 3: I can't coach both sides. So if I pick the
Speaker 3: victim side, I'm going at it and you watch out,
Speaker 3: and if you land in jail, buddy good. That's what
Speaker 3: my whole goal is. So but if I'm representing you,
Speaker 3: I'm going to advocate for you and That's that's all
Speaker 3: you can ask of a lawyer. So going back to that,
Speaker 3: I think he picked his victims well and he was
Speaker 3: right about that. And I think that the people who
Speaker 3: do this kind of thing no know who to choose well.
Speaker 2: So, Karen, thank you so much for being here. This
Speaker 2: has been an amazing conversation. I really appreciate your time
Speaker 2: having absolutely I do quickly. Now, you have a radio
Speaker 2: show in Chicago, right and you also have a podcast,
Speaker 2: so could you quickly just quickly plug those for us.
Speaker 2: Tell people about your your radio show and your podcast
Speaker 2: and where they can find it, and in case anybody
Speaker 2: wants to tune in and listen, because I'm sure it's
Speaker 2: fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3: I have a radio show on WGN in Chicago, and
Speaker 3: you can stream, you can listen live. It's a live show.
Speaker 3: It's wgnradio dot com. And you can go on WGN's
Speaker 3: website and put my name in Karen Conti, and you
Speaker 3: can get all of my interviews that I've done over
Speaker 3: the years, and I talk about all kinds of legal issues.
Speaker 3: You know, I'll talk about serial killers, but I also
Speaker 3: talk about Supreme Court decisions. Whoever is being indicted these days,
Speaker 3: celebrity kinds of legal issues. I talk about family well,
Speaker 3: I talk about really pretty much everything and anything. And
Speaker 3: my website is Karenconty dot com. I really like to
Speaker 3: hear from people who either read my book or are
Speaker 3: listening to me. Hello at Karenconty dot com. And of
Speaker 3: course I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Speaker 2: Sure sure. And you also make frequent television appearances as
Speaker 2: a legal analyst, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: I do. I am the designated local Fox affiliate and
Speaker 3: I've been that for over twenty five years. You can
Speaker 3: see me once in a while on CNN News Nation.
Speaker 3: I'm on on a very regular basis. The National Desk
Speaker 3: also on that show, and then you know MSNBC, Fox
Speaker 3: News National not as much these days.
Speaker 2: Great, great, well, and I hope everybody checks you out
Speaker 2: on all of those platforms, because I have found our
Speaker 2: time together utterly fascinating. Again everyone, The book is called
Speaker 2: Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy, defending America's most evil
Speaker 2: serial killer on Death Row. Karen Kanti, who has joined
Speaker 2: us today, that's Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy. Karen.
Speaker 2: Where can they buy your book?
Speaker 3: Amazon is the best place, of course, And thank you, Jeff,
Speaker 3: Jeff bezos and uh, if you like it, please give
Speaker 3: me a nice review because that helps me. If you
Speaker 3: don't like it, just tell them you read a John
Speaker 3: Grisham novel and be done with it.
Speaker 2: And I have to say this, this book, Killing Time
Speaker 2: with John Wayne Gacy by Karen Conty, I gotta tell
Speaker 2: you it is wonderfully written. Karen. Your pote, your prose
Speaker 2: is fantastic, You're you're concise, your pacing is amazing. It's dramatic.
Speaker 2: It feels like a novel, not there's nothing dry about it.
Speaker 2: I found it to be a very difficult read, but
Speaker 2: only because of the subject matter as a the the uh,
Speaker 2: the book itself is wonderfully written. So anybody, if you're
Speaker 2: if you're fascinated with serial killers, if you're fascinated with crime,
Speaker 2: if you're fascinated with gaycy or just the legal process,
Speaker 2: do read Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy by Karen Conty.
Speaker 2: It's a beauty, fully written book. It's pulse pounding. I
Speaker 2: pretty much couldn't put it down. It is definitely an
Speaker 2: emotional rollercoaster because of just what happened and how close
Speaker 2: Karen was to all of it, and all the sort
Speaker 2: of details that she's able to provide, which is also
Speaker 2: what makes the book fascinating. So again, Killing Time with
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gacy defending America's most evil serial killer on
Speaker 2: death Row by Karen Conty. Go out, get the book,
Speaker 2: Read the book. It is fantastic. Karen, once again, thank
Speaker 2: you for joining us. I'm so happy to have had
Speaker 2: you on the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Sevan, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely this has been kind of Murdery.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell
Speaker 1: your friends. You can find us on social media at
Speaker 1: kinder Murdery or email at Kindamurdery at gmail dot com
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