John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown
True Crime
40 Episodes
Thirty-three young men. One trapdoor. Eight of them still unidentified. John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown traces the most chilling double life in American criminal history — a successful contractor, a twice-married father, a Democratic Party precinct captain, a volunteer clown at children's hospitals, and a man who buried thirty-three boys beneath the floorboards of his suburban Chicago home while his neighbours wondered about the smell. Told entirely through narration across twenty episodes, this micro-drama series follows Gacy from his violent Chicago childhood and a father who called him soft, through a Las Vegas mortuary, an Iowa sodomy conviction, eighteen months of a ten-year sentence, and the quiet ranch house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue where everything was buried — literally and otherwise. Unlike the transient, rootless killers in this series, Gacy killed from inside the community that trusted him most. He was photographed with the First Lady. He gave birthday parties for neighbourhood children. He painted his own face white, drew the corners of his mouth into sharp points, and performed magic tricks with real police handcuffs. He was caught not by forensic science or profiling, but by a fifteen-year-old boy's mother who refused to let the police stop looking — and a detective who used a bathroom at the wrong moment.
John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown
True Crime
40 Episodes
Thirty-three young men. One trapdoor. Eight of them still unidentified. John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown traces the most chilling double life in American criminal history — a successful contractor, a twice-married father, a Democratic Party precinct captain, a volunteer clown at children's hospitals, and a man who buried thirty-three boys beneath the floorboards of his suburban Chicago home while his neighbours wondered about the smell. Told entirely through narration across twenty episodes, this micro-drama series follows Gacy from his violent Chicago childhood and a father who called him soft, through a Las Vegas mortuary, an Iowa sodomy conviction, eighteen months of a ten-year sentence, and the quiet ranch house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue where everything was buried — literally and otherwise. Unlike the transient, rootless killers in this series, Gacy killed from inside the community that trusted him most. He was photographed with the First Lady. He gave birthday parties for neighbourhood children. He painted his own face white, drew the corners of his mouth into sharp points, and performed magic tricks with real police handcuffs. He was caught not by forensic science or profiling, but by a fifteen-year-old boy's mother who refused to let the police stop looking — and a detective who used a bathroom at the wrong moment.
