The Man Who Killed Boys

by Clifford L. Lindecker

  When Carole walked outside one morning and found a huge mound of dirt piled at the far end of the backyard, she didn't suspect that it had come from the bothersome crawl space. She accepted without question her husband's explanation that he had ordered some sod and was going to fill in the backyard.

  Marriage to John had its positive side. He was a good provider. No one could fault him on that. He worked long hours during the day, first at the restaurant and later at the construction job. Then he came home, had dinner and often worked far into the night. At times he puttered inside the garage or outside long after Carole and the girls had been lulled into slumber by their own soft breathing, the silence interrupted only by the occasional groan of a board in the silent house.

  One day a week Carole and her husband bowled in a Sunday morning mixed league at the Monte-Cristo Bowl Alleys. Gacy was a powerful bowler with a deadly hook and was capable of regularly rolling lines in the 180s. He moved with surprising grace for a man of his bulk. He had taken naturally to the sport, something he had been unable to do with golf, which he had tried unsuccessfully during his Jaycee days in Waterloo. But he was good at bowling. He had trophies and a ribboned medal that announced he was the "World's Greatest Bowler" in his recreation room to attest to his skill.

  Still, it was not the ideal marriage that Carole had hoped for. Within a year after the wedding she realized that eventually it would end in divorce. But she worried about the girls. They had already been through one broken marriage, and had quickly taken to John, calling him "Daddy" from the very beginning. The baby of the family considered him to be her natural father.

  There was no denying that he got along well with her daughters and was considerate of them. He installed an oval above-ground swimming pool and built a playhouse in the backyard for them soon after the wedding. Not long after he suggested that the younger girl's bed be moved from the front bedroom. He said that he wanted to make it into a playroom for the girls and that they could sleep in the same room at the back of the house near his and Carole's bedroom.

  That left the front of the house without bedrooms. The insulation was good, and Gacy was free to work in the front of the house as late as he liked without disturbing his sleeping wife or the children. On the nights that she went to bed ahead of him, which was almost every night, she seldom knew when he left and when he came home. The house was silent and not even the breathing of Patches, the family's pet Lhasa Apso that some of the neighbors referred to as a poodle, could be heard.

  One day Carole found a billfold with identification belonging to a young man in her husband's late-model black Oldsmobile, which he had outfitted with a red light and radio scanner. When she asked him why the billfold was in the car, Gacy exploded in another of his rages. She learned when she found other billfolds and bits of identification belonging to young men not to ask any more where they had come from.

  That was when he began openly bringing home magazines with pictures of naked males. Carole didn't quarrel with him about it, and there was an unspoken agreement that the material wouldn't be left around the house where the girls could find it. But then he never left anything out of place. He had a passion for neatness. In his house, magazines were stacked neatly, dishes were kept washed and beds were made when sleep was over.

  Carole began confiding to a few intimates that her husband didn't need her any longer. He had already admitted to her that he preferred boys.

  Gacy's social and professional life was progressing more favorably than his marriage. By 1975 he was becoming too old for the Jaycees. It was a young man's organization. But he missed the companionship and the ego-boosting attention and challenge of moving into a position of importance in an organization filled with vigorous imaginative men. He turned to politics.

  In Chicago and in Cook County, politics is nearly synonymous with the Democratic party. There are few offices for Republicans or Independents. One of the few Republicans to win a major political office in Cook County in recent years is Bernard Carey. He was a thirty-one-year-old lawyer in 1972, running for his first elective office, when he upended incumbent Cook County States Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan. Carey was the only non-incumbent elected, and he was sworn into office on December 4.

  Incumbent Cook County Coroner Dr. Andrew Toman, who participated in the Speck investigation, was sworn into office for the last time the same day as Carey. During his reelection campaign he had supported a referendum proposing abolition of his office and replacement by the county medical examiner system. The referendum was approved by a five-to-one margin, to become effective December 6, 1976.

  It's doubtful if Gacy paid more than passing attention to either the Carey-Hanrahan contest for States Attorney or to establishment of the medical examiner system in Cook County. But the time would come when both incidents would be significant to him.

  Gacy sought out Robert F. Martwick, a prominent Loop attorney who lived in Norwood Park and was the Democratic township committeeman. The portly contractor explained that he had just moved into the community and would like to make it a better place to live. Someday he would like to run for public office, he said.

  His aspirations were admirable, even though the desire to seek election to public office may have been slightly premature. Martwick suggested that before Gacy became a political candidate he become better known locally and involve himself in projects to help his neighbors in the community.

  Service projects were something that Gacy had learned about when he was a Jaycee, and he knew how to involve himself in community activities. He drove away from the meeting with Martwick in high spirits, with plans to make himself known to his Norwood Park township neighbors already germinating in his mind.

  He designed clown outfits for himself, and selected a catchy name, "Pogo the Clown." His generous stomach provided natural padding to fill out the front, and he topped the baggy suits with a tassled hat and added oversize shoes and white gloves. He taught himself to paint pyramid-shaped eyes and to smear on a broad smiling mouth. Only professional clowns and students of the art of clowning would recognize him as an unschooled amateur because of the sharp corners at the edges of his mouth. Knowledgeable clowns paint rounded corners so they don't frighten small children.

  Zielinski took photographs of him in the clown costume, and it wasn't long before Gacy was entertaining small groups of the children and grandchildren of bowling friends and at picnics or Christmas parties sponsored by Norwood township Democrats. He talked importantly of appearing at children's hospitals, but none of his friends ever witnessed the performances.

  There were other talks with Martwick. The township committeeman was impressed and pleased when the beefy contractor volunteered to use his young construction workers to keep the party headquarters clean. There would be no charge. Martwick accepted the generous offer. People didn't volunteer free services like that every day.

  The Chicago lawyer had no idea that one of Gacy's first ventures cleaning up the headquarters would lead to eventual accusations (but no criminal charges) that the chubby political hopeful had tried to sexually assault a sixteen year-old boy there.

  In 1975 Tony Antonucci was a well-muscled, wiry six-footer who weighed 175 pounds and wrestled at Gordon Technical High School, a Catholic boys' school on the northwest side of the city. As the story was put together some three years later by Antonucci, Gacy made a pass at him while he and Gacy were cleaning the office. Antonucci told his boss to leave him alone, but Gacy got pushy, offering him money for sex. Antonucci said he had to pick up a folding chair and threaten Gacy with it before the man calmed down and tried to laugh off the episode as a joke.

  Gacy tried again the next month. This time he came to the Antonucci apartment one night while the boy was home alone, carrying a bottle of wine and some heterosexual stag films. After they sipped from the wine and talked a while, Gacy said he wanted to show the youth a stunt with a pair of trick handcuffs he used in his clown act. He claimed there was a secret method of unlocking them and challe
nged his companion to figure it out.

  Antonucci was agreeable and put on the cuffs. Unknown to his boss, he did not slip one of his hands all the way inside. He kept the free hand underneath him so that he appeared to be cuffed. As soon as Gacy thought that he was securely manacled he moved forward to begin undressing the boy.

  Antonucci lurched suddenly forward and jerked Gacy's legs, dropping him onto his back. The young wrestler snapped the free cuff on one of Gacy's wrists, flipped him over and pressed a knee against the back of his head. Gacy squirmed helplessly face down on the floor while Antonucci took the key away from him, and a moment later both the man's wrists were pulled behind his back and cuffed. He was kept there, struggling and screaming threats, until he calmed down and Antonucci freed him.

  "You're the first one to get the cuffs off—not only that, but you got that one on me," Gacy told his young employee.7

  Gacy never tried to overpower or assault Antonucci again, although the youth continued to work for PDM Contractors, Inc. for another eight or nine months.

  Martwick, of course, knew nothing about the incidents. He knew only that the husky contractor had become a dependable volunteer for the numerous jobs connected with operation of a party precinct headquarters. Gacy was unfailingly available and willing to run errands, re-hang a crooked door, wash windows, set up chairs for meetings, or fix a leaky faucet. Gacy appeared to be proving his worth to the organization and the sincerity of his desire to help better the community.

  Martwick nominated him for a position on the Norwood Park Township Street Lighting District. It was the commission's responsibility to maintain streetlights in the unincorporated areas. Gacy became secretary-treasurer. In 1975 and 1976 he filed ethics statements, as required by Illinois state law of appointed and elected public officials. They disclosed that a sidewalk was installed by PDM for the Norwood Park Township Road and Bridge Department at a cost of $3,500.

  Gacy's appointment to the lighting commission led to an acquaintance with Sam Amirante. Young and just a few years out of Loyola University Law School, Amirante was attorney for the commission. Despite Amirante's youth, Gacy was impressed by his quick intelligence and articulate grasp of problems.

  The only child of a newspaper truck driver and his wife, Amirante grew up in the adjoining town of Norridge and was president of his junior and senior classes in high school. Although he is only five-foot two-inches tall as an adult, he lettered in track and made the varsity of his high school baseball team as a second baseman and center fielder.

  The competition in sports was stiffer at Loyola and he did not play varsity baseball, but the feisty student continued to shine socially and academically. He was once again elected as senior-class president. He served as administrative assistant to the vice-president in law school, and after obtaining his degree and passing the bar examination took his first job as an attorney with the Cook County Public Defender's Office. He was working there, developing and sharpening his courtroom skills, when he met Gacy.

  Amirante was still an undergraduate at Loyola and haunting the courtrooms of the Criminal Courts Building on Chicago's south side when he watched F. Lee Bailey, the most famous and flamboyant criminal attorney in the country, argue a case.

  The Boston lawyer and ex-Marine fighter pilot was defending millionaire horseman Silas Jayne, who was charged with conspiracy to murder in the slaying of his younger brother, George, in one of Chicago's most celebrated criminal trials. The law student sat in the courtroom of Judge Richard J. Fitzgerald for days, watching Bailey, whose brilliant courtroom work has made him a folk hero to some young lawyers. Amirante was mentally logging every detail, every maneuver, and every action of the defense.8

  One of the most conspicuous aspects of Bailey's approach to a case, aside from his courtroom theatrics, is the obvious meticulousness of his preparation. As a practicing lawyer, Amirante too would be carefully prepared for his cases or jobs, regardless of whether, as a public defender, he was representing a penniless street-gang member charged with a mugging or solving a question of construction contracts for the Norwood Park Township Lighting Commission.

  Amirante was the kind of knowledgeable and devoted worker that Gacy could relate to. Though the two men didn't become fast friends, it appeared that a feeling of mutual respect developed for the way that each handled his official obligations.

  Gacy began passing out business cards prematurely, identifying himself as a precinct captain shortly after he became involved with township Democrats. Martwick overlooked the minor breach of conduct because of Gacy's record of laboring so diligently for the party and the community. While Gacy was building his reputation as an assiduously dedicated Democrat and minor township official, he was also cementing an even closer relationship with another acquaintance in the construction business.

  Donald Czarna was a cement contractor. The men met one day while Czarna was pouring sidewalks for the town of Norridge, and Gacy interrupted him to ask if he would pour a couple of porch steps at his house. Czarna and Gacy had much in common. Both were in the construction business, and both swaggered and boasted. Czarna was a rugged man with a cowhide complexion rubbed leathery red by the Chicago sun and wind, who talked out of the corner of his mouth, filling his conversation with blustering threats and stories about people he had beaten up or laid low with a single punch. Gacy's face was darkened by a metallic-blue Richard Nixon beard that showed dark even after the closest shave, and he was also known to use bluster and threats to intimidate people he had disagreements with. The physical builds of the two contractors were as similar as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and more than once they were mistaken for brothers.

  After Czarna poured the steps the men didn't see each other again for about three months. Then Gacy contacted Czarna and asked him to do the cement work on a remodeling job he had contracted. There were a couple more jobs, and Gacy invited Czarna and his wife, Lydia, to one of his parties. They visited frequently after that and became such close friends that they took some holidays and vacations together. A few times the Czarnas loaned their cabin in Wisconsin to their friend during short breaks in his work schedule.

  Although the Czarnas never saw Gacy perform in his clown costume, he was proud of his routine and liked to show off the collection of clown art and equipment he used in his act. There was a collar and stiff leash for an invisible dog, a rubber plucked chicken, and once he showed off what he said were toy handcuffs.

  Gacy climbed into his clown outfit to entertain at a children's party for friends of the Czarnas, and soon moved into their social crowd, joining in more card games and other activities. Gacy and his friend worked hard, and during the slow season for construction, when the winds whipped snow and sleet through the streets and the temperatures dipped below freezing, they played hard. Las Vegas was one of their favorite play spots.

  Gacy was no more compulsive about gambling than he was about drinking. Although he liked to shock his friends by telling them he had won or lost thousands at the casinos, he actually preferred spending a few leisurely hours at the black jack tables and sitting down to a fine meal with a group of companions. He was at his best and most ebullient at those times.

  He and Czarna were once playing blackjack when the dealer withdrew an old deck of cards and replaced it with a new one. "I'm from Chicago and I do tricks in a clown suit for kids," Gacy told the dealer. "I go through a lot of cards and could use a few of your old decks if you don't need them." The dealer gave him a handful of cards.

  "No, I mean lots of cards," Gacy said, shaking his head. "I need lots of cards."

  The dealer called the pit boss, who went into a back room and returned a few minutes later. He handed the gambler from Illinois a cardboard carton full of playing cards.

  Czarna was impressed. Gacy liked that. He felt good when he was able to impress his friends with his importance. He enjoyed it so much that he got carried away one time after winning a few dollars at the tables, and he invited his group, three or four couples inclu
ding some bowling friends, to be his guests at an elegant restaurant in one of the casinos. Gacy was an entertaining host and talked loudly and constantly during the meal about his business successes, his luck at the tables and his plans for the future. He continued talking when the check came, seemingly unaware of its presence. The dessert had been finished, coffee and cocktails drunk, and still he kept talking, making no move for the check. Grumbling, Czarna snatched it from the table and paid for the meal.

  Gacy could have afforded to pay the bill. His business was growing, and he had almost more work than he could handle building or remodeling drug stores, hamburger and hotdog shops, and ice-cream parlors. Often after doing the contracting on the ice-cream shops—he did several for the same franchise chain—he appeared at grand openings and promotions in his clown suit and gave away balloons and other favors.

  There was time also to do an occasional small job in his neighborhood, and he built a recreation room in one of the houses across the street from his home. Even though he had been building things and tinkering with tools since he was a child, he wasn't a skilled craftsman. But he knew how to use others who could do professional work, and he made liberal use of subcontractors.

  Czarna was one of his closest friends, but he was also observant enough to admit that, as a carpenter, Gacy was a wood butcher. It didn't take long before Czarna learned that his friend was no better qualified to handle heavy construction equipment.

  Gacy was working on a repaving project in which it was necessary to remove a few inches of blacktopping along a curb to facilitate proper water flow. He asked to use Czarna's compressor, then fumbled for almost ten minutes unsuccessfully trying to get it started. Grinning at his friend's confusion as he pushed and poked at the instrument panel and steering wheel, Czarna finally shouldered him aside, turned a key and pressed the starter button. The compressor sputtered to life.