Boys Enter the House

by David Nelson

  The Christmas before he vanished, Nancy remembers her brother acting strangely at their mother’s home in Warren, Michigan: “He said that angels had driven him to my mom’s house,” she recalled. During the visit, he also gave away albums and books, “stuff that he said he didn’t need.” Nancy knew that Ann Arbor at the time was also a place of experimentation, especially for drugs. “He was out of it,” she said.

  Following his disappearance, the friend who’d driven Jeffrey home for the break expressed anger when confronted by police. The boy’s father also intervened. Later, when the friend did acquiesce to speaking with Jeffrey’s mother, the friend suggested Jeff might be in French Canada, given his language skills.

  For a young man in Michigan, Chicago has always stood as a place for opportunities and fun. Train lines and bus lines—like the ones victims Jon Prestidge or Robert Winch took, respectively, in 1977—run from Ann Arbor to Chicago. “There’s enough weirdness that I think something weird happened,” Nancy said of her brother’s case.

  His report with Ann Arbor police confirms that his dental records were indeed sent to Chicago to aid in the Gacy investigation. Nancy and her siblings have never heard definitively if her brother does not match.

  And, as the twists of the Gacy case would later show, dental records were not as infallible as some might have thought. Police uncovered Body 10 in the crawl space underneath Gacy’s front door on the north side of the house. This skeleton, however, was found on its own, barely touching Body 15, which ran diagonally northeast to southwest.

  The Cook County Sheriff estimated Body 10’s disappearance as occurring sometime between March 15, 1977 (Jon Prestidge), and July 5, 1977 (Matthew Bowman), but contends that this estimate has low accuracy, probably because of the body’s isolated position in the crawl space. At times, Gacy himself was uncertain on time frames, especially for some of his early victims.

  At an estimated height of five foot seven to five foot eleven and an estimated age of seventeen to twenty-one, both Jeffrey Stinnett and Billy Shields (twenty-one years old and five foot eleven) are possible candidates for this victim.

  Other reports from the case hold additional clues to identities. In particular, the missing person report for Kenneth Parker includes names of several dozen missing young men that investigators were interested in. And in Parker’s autopsy report, Dr. Edward Pavlik, a suburban orthodontist aiding the investigation, compared Parker to several others. This list has often been called the “hot list” and contained several dozen names, including victims who were later identified. A name in both of these reports stands out: Craig Conner.

  Both Robin Pratt and Valerie Loy continued to search for their friend and brother, even after nothing came of the dental records when the case initially broke. For Craig’s family, the cost lingered long after his disappearance in 1975.

  Craig’s mother suffered a nervous breakdown from the event. Michael Conner, his father, also dealt with the pain of not knowing. His wife found him burning all his notes and files from the case in a barrel in the backyard one day.

  As a possible victim of John Wayne Gacy, Craig fits several common traits. At the time of his disappearance, Craig lived at 717 W. Barry in the New Town neighborhood. Not much farther away: Clark and Diversey, where the nearby Yankee Doodle Dandy restaurant was operating by 1975.

  Craig’s entry in the Chicago Police’s Daily Bulletin—misspelled as “Graig”—from November 13, 1975, lists 915 N. LaSalle as a place he frequented. Just two blocks away—Bughouse Square. All of these were key locations in the disappearances of many of Gacy’s identified victims.

  In notes maintained by his sister, Val, there’d been rumors Craig had been “hurting for money” and possibly hanging out at the park. Jonathan Ben Gordon himself had been propositioned for sex by Craig the evening before he disappeared, though Craig did not ask for money in exchange.

  While it is possible Craig went to Bughouse Square to solicit men for sex, potentially running into John Wayne Gacy, his story presents another possibility.

  Had Craig met up with Tex Richardson and an argument gone too far? Did he discard Craig’s body somehow, or bury him somewhere in the property? “He had this rage that was unbelievable,” Robin said of Tex. “So I wondered if maybe that’s actually what really happened … things got out of control …”

  Tex had been the first to report Craig missing,* phoning his family the day after he was last seen. He went into Craig’s apartment a few days later and put the coat inside where Craig’s father discovered it. Had Tex discarded Craig’s body and afterward realized he’d forgotten to get rid of Craig’s coat?

  Even more mysterious: the reservations for Craig’s flight back to New Mexico. Who had canceled and then subsequently reconfirmed the trip?

  Craig’s sister Valerie believes Tex was questioned frequently in the days after the disappearance. So far as anyone knows, Tex Richardson’s apartment on Nelson Street has never been inspected. Missing persons investigations from the time only went so far, especially for men older than eighteen years of age.

  For so long, John Wayne Gacy had gone unnoticed, even when survivors brought police to his very doorstep. Most times, he was not smart or clever; he was either lucky or helped along by the system’s latent homophobia and classism strongly in place during the 1970s. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Tex Richardson, too, was confronted, questioned, put on the spot, but skated by without a second thought due to police’s ambivalence toward cases with homosexual overtones.

  If something did happen between Craig and Tex in October 1975, he got away with it. In October 1978 Tex died of pneumonia while suffering from stage 4 Hodgkin’s disease. The Conner family had hoped for a deathbed confession, but he said nothing.

  Only a few years later, financial troubles led to the permanent closure of the Chicago Conservatory College of Music.

  Robin Pratt still thinks about the friend he loved so much. Certain pieces of music still remind him of Craig. In recent years he put up a Craigslist ad requesting anyone with information regarding Craig’s disappearance come forward. Robin received very few responses, though he still holds out hope that Craig will be found. “I still love him,” Robin says.

  As of 2020, Craig Allen Conner is still missing.

  Then there were six.

  For these unidentified victims, their placement in the crawl space often allows for investigators to estimate their disappearance date, while pathologists have offered clues to their appearance, particularly with facial reconstructions and DNA testing.

  For estimated disappearance dates, the sheriff’s office often bases their accuracy on “Trial witness’ testimony of digging trenches (graves).”

  The testimony in question is that of both Michael Rossi and David Cram. Rossi spoke of digging a ten-foot-long trench for “drain tiles” from the southwest corner of the house in an eastern direction at the request of his employer.

  “So that would be the summer of 1977, is that correct?” the prosecution asked.

  “The end of it,” Rossi replied, “the end of the summer.”

  Body 13 was found off on its own in this southwest trench. Also buried in this trench was Russell Nelson, missing October 17, 1977. Most likely, the boy who would become body 13 met his end sometime around this date as well. The Cook County Sheriff erroneously lists this young man’s disappearance as occurring between August 6, 1976, and October 5, 1976 (the latter being a meaningless date, as no other victims went missing on or around that date.)

  His measurements (five foot eleven to six foot two, estimated age of seventeen to twenty-one) match Stinnett. The victim also likely suffered from an abscessed tooth at the time of his murder, though whether Jeffrey Stinnett had complained about tooth pain before his disappearance is unknown.

  In 2018 the sheriff’s office released updated facial reconstructions of bodies 10 and 13. Jeffrey’s Stinnett’s resemblance to Body 13’s image is uncanny. “When a big thing happens and there’s a
serial killer, even if you’ve got someone missing, your mind just doesn’t go to that,” Nancy Kubinski said of her brother’s disappearance.

  While some of the victims were found in isolated spots on their own, several were found in trenches occupied by other victims.

  Body 5 lay in a trench on the northeastern side of the house dug by Gregory Godzik, who would later join this victim here as well. This victim was buried the deepest (at thirty-six inches) and probably died sometime before or during December 1976, but before Gregory Godzik.

  Bodies 21 and 26 rested in a trench with fellow victims Billy Carroll, Rick Johnston, and James Haakenson. Starting in the spring of 1976, Gacy killed with alarming frequency, and most likely this trench—dug by Michael Rossi just days before Billy Carroll’s disappearance—filled up with victims from that summer.

  Considering Gacy also estimated he carried out “doubles,” or double homicides, on two to three occasions, it’s possible some of these victims were killed together.

  Like many of his fellow hustlers, Billy Carroll had started operating with a partner, or a lookout, in case his johns got aggressive during encounters. Though he frequently went inside the homes of the men he met with, he also knew the risks. Was Body 21, found above Billy Carroll, a fellow sex worker?

  James Haakenson was last heard from on August 5, 1976, but ended up virtually intermingled with the remains of Rick Johnston, who went missing just a day later. Did they both meet up with Gacy after the concert at the Aragon Ballroom?

  David Cram had also dug a trench during his time working for Gacy. According to investigators, this became the grave of Michael Marino and Kenneth Parker, another “double,” that occurred in 1976, Gacy’s busiest year. But the details of this murder, long thought to be solved, have become an enduring mystery of the case.

  Even before the burial of her son’s alleged remains, Sherry Marino had doubts about the identification. While she’d dutifully submitted her son Michael’s dental records to Chicago police upon hearing about the Gacy case, she was informed in early 1979 that her son was not a Gacy victim. Only in March 1980, after the trial had already wrapped, was Sherry Marino informed that her son was indeed a victim.

  The last time she saw him he’d been wearing a blue tanker coat, blue jeans, and purple gym shoes, according to the missing person report. Her son’s alleged remains had been wearing corduroy pants, red socks, and high-topped gym shoes, items which she was shown and did not recognize.

  Among details in Michael Marino’s autopsy report, his mother read her son’s alleged remains had previously suffered an injury to his collarbone, something she knew Michael had never experienced. The report also indicated Body 14 had possible “American Indian” heritage, though Michael Marino was pure Italian. In addition, the dental records, which Sherry submitted to investigators in 1979, did not show a molar the autopsy report indicated had come in. The fact that the identification had taken so long also bothered her.

  In fall 2011—at the same time investigators were looking to identify the eight then unnamed victims—a judge ruled that Sherry Marino could have her son’s remains exhumed for DNA testing. Curiously, the medical examiner and sheriff’s office were not present at the exhumation, though they were invited to send witnesses.

  A year later, exactly thirty-six years after Michael’s disappearance, Steven Becker and Robert Stephenson, attorneys for Sherry Marino, announced she’d been correct all along: the bones were not her son’s.

  Body 14 and Body 15—identified in 1980 as Kenneth Parker—had been “plastered one right up against the other,” as Daniel Genty testified at the trial. With that, Marino set about exhuming the remains identified as Kenneth Parker and testing her DNA against his. In 2016, with the help of Steve Becker, who continues to work pro bono for the Marinos, the family conducted a private test, which concluded that this body was also not related to Sherry Marino. This test, however, did not disprove the remains were Parker’s, whose family declined to participate.

  Today, both the initial investigators at the time as well as the sheriff’s office stand by the identification of Body 14 as Michael Marino. Edward Pavlik, an orthodontist who worked on the identification back when the case broke, later told the Tribune he would “stake my wife and children on [the identification].” The sheriff’s department contends that the sample taken from Body 14 could not have yielded enough DNA for testing. They have also offered to do their own testing of the body, despite these tests having been performed by a third party. Due to her past interactions with police regarding her son’s case, Sherry Marino does not trust the sheriff’s office to do a thorough and honest test.

  Marino’s original missing person report from 1976 meanders throughout the neighborhood with many twists and turns. Although many of the boys were seen after their disappearances, sightings of Michael Marino continued for several years after his mother last saw him.

  As late as 1978, friends were still seeing Michael in the streets. One friend stated that Michael—going under the name Louis Soto—had planned to board a Greyhound bus. Another friend claims Michael came right up to him near the gay bar, Cheeks, saying, “Don’t you remember me? I’m Mike Marino!”

  Early on, a responding officer staked out the Yankee Doodle Dandy, one of the places Marino and Parker had last been seen. As the officer waited, he spotted Marino himself on the street. Before the officer could apprehend him, Michael ran off.

  Although she remains skeptical of the officer’s sighting of Michael, Sherry herself claimed to have seen Michael coming out of a home on Oakdale Avenue just days after his disappearance. When she called out to him, Michael had run away from her. As a result of the sighting, police eventually executed a search warrant at the home, occupied at the time by an alleged “homosexual.” The man, however, claimed not to know Michael and the search itself turned up nothing of value. Throughout the investigation, many leads and tips would come from Sherry herself as she continued searching the neighborhood, sometimes at great risk to her own safety.

  Police inspected the Surf Hotel, where Sherry heard Michael had been living. They found an L. Marino, about forty-five years old, had registered to room 412.

  Only six weeks after Michael disappeared, the Marino apartment was vandalized. Michael’s clothes were torn up and recent photographs of him stolen. In December 1976, the Marino apartment was again broken into and, according to Sherry, a witness reported seeing Kenneth Parker carrying out the family’s television.

  That same month, officers responded to a call of “a man with a gun,” and instead found Sherry Marino at the scene claiming her son had been abducted by men in a black van. A companion of Sherry’s had seen Michael sitting in the van near the area of Fairfield and North Avenues. She even provided a license plate number for the van, registered to an Ed Mitchell. Police also interviewed a man named James Lyons, who “obviously knew of the missing boy but revealed no further information.”

  And while the leads continued, eventually by the end of the report, police pivoted fully to the investigation unfolding out in Norwood Township. “The unusual thing about these bodies,” Daniel Genty later testified about Marino’s and Parker’s alleged remains, “is that they were the only ones that were on an angle—that is to say, they were not parallel to the walls.”

  That wasn’t the only unusual thing about these trenches.

  If the official investigation is to be believed, Parker and Marino died on or closely after their disappearance on October 24, 1976. But the trenches that eventually became their graves were not dug for almost a full year after that.

  David Cram had gone down into the crawl space in August 1977—on his birthday, no less—to clear the area for clay pipes.

  “Am I correct that he wanted you to dig one trench to the front of the house,” Sullivan asked, “and then another shorter, more smaller trench?”

  “About three foot, yeah,” Cram replied.

  “Did you in fact dig down there that day?”

  �
��Yes, I did.”

  For four or five hours, Cram dug an eight- to ten-foot-long trench about knee-deep from the sump pump toward the front, or north, side of the house. Then he turned east and dug for seven to seven and a half more feet.

  Based on these measurements,* there is no conceivable way that if Michael Marino and Kenneth Parker were murdered and buried in October 1976, David Cram did not disturb or discover their remains that day in August 1977. Even if these measurements were off by a foot or two, he most likely would have dug through some portion of them.

  Either Marino and Parker were alive nearly a year after police believed they were murdered, or these bodies are not Marino, or not Marino and Parker, and they were different, unknown victims killed sometime after August 1977.

  Or there is, of course, the distinct possibility that Cram and others have not told the truth.

  The possibility that Gacy’s young employees knew more than they let on became apparent early on.

  “That was my theory right from the start,” said Joe Kozenczak, several years before he died in 2015. “There were two employees that I felt were privy to Gacy’s inside lifestyle. One of these individuals was especially of great interest to me.”

  “I have no doubt that Rossi knew a lot more than has ever been discovered,” Rafael Tovar stated. “But the people in charge of interrogating him gave it their all and the guy just remained steadfast.”

  While other investigators like Daniel Genty and Bill Kunkle remain skeptical of the possibility of accomplices, the theory lingered well past 1978.