264: Killer Clown, John Wayne Gacy | USA - Part 1

Killer Clown, John Wayne Gacy - Part 1 | USA On the morning of the 22nd of December, 1978, detectives returned to a modest brick ranch house on West Summerdale Avenue, in a quiet suburb on the northwest side of Chicago. For ten days they had been searching for a missing fifteen-year-old boy named Robert Piest. Every lead had brought them back to the same address. Inside, the house looked much as they remembered it. Family photographs lined the walls, the furniture was neatly arranged, and in one room hung brightly coloured clown costumes used at charity events and children's parties. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about the home. Investigators resumed their search, methodically working from room to room before turning their attention to the narrow crawl space beneath the house. One of the detectives lifted the wooden hatch and was met by a rush of stale, earthy air. With a flashlight in one hand, he lowered himself into the darkness while the others waited above. Seconds later, his voice broke the silence, confirming their suspicions – he had found human remains. Before the day was over, investigators realised they were no longer searching for one missing schoolboy. They had uncovered a crime scene that would take weeks to excavate and years to fully understand. Intro Music & Disclaimer You are listening to: The Evidence Locker. Thanks for listening to our podcast. For an ad-free experience, join us on Patreon, starting at just $2 a month, with 25% of proceeds supporting The Doe Network, helping to bring closure to international cold cases. Our episodes cover true crimes involving real people, and some content may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised. We produce each episode with the utmost respect for the victims, their families, and loved ones. In 1978, Des Plaines was one of Chicago's growing northwestern suburbs, a community of just over fifty thousand people situated a short drive from the city and only minutes from O'Hare International Airport. Passenger jets crossed the sky at regular intervals from early morning until late at night, their engines forming part of the suburb's familiar soundtrack. Rows of modest brick homes lined quiet residential streets, while neighbourhood shopping centres, churches and family-owned businesses served a population that had grown rapidly in the decades following the Second World War. It was the sort of place where neighbours recognised one another, children still rode their bicycles through the streets until dusk, and parents rarely gave a second thought to teenagers walking home after work. For fifteen-year-old Robert Piest, life followed a routine that was reassuringly ordinary. He lived with his parents, Harold and Elizabeth, and his younger siblings, attended Maine West High School and worked several afternoons each week at Nisson Pharmacy on Lee Street. Friends remembered him as polite, reliable and mature for his age. He enjoyed earning his own spending money, took pride in doing his job well and had begun talking about buying a car once he was old enough to drive. There was little about Robert that drew attention to him, and perhaps that was exactly the point. He was an ordinary American teenager with a close-knit family, a part-time job and plans for the future. Monday, the 11th of December, began like countless other school days. After classes, Robert reported for work at Nisson Pharmacy, a neighbourhood drugstore where he stocked shelves, served customers and helped behind the counter during the evening rush. Christmas was only two weeks away, making it one of the busiest periods of the year, and the store remained busy well into the evening. Earlier that night, the pharmacy owner, Phil Torf, had been meeting with a local building contractor to discuss renovations to the premises. During the conversation, the contractor mentioned that his company employed teenage boys and paid five dollars an hour. It was considerably more than Robert earned working at the pharmacy, and when he overheard the discussion, the opportunity immediately caught his attention. Shortly after nine o'clock, Elizabeth arrived to collect her son. It was her forty-sixth birthday, and the family planned to spend the rest of the evening together after Robert finished work. Before getting into the car, he leaned through the open passenger window and asked if she would mind waiting a few more minutes. He wanted to speak to the contractor before he left and ask about the work that had been mentioned earlier. Elizabeth agreed without hesitation. She watched Robert walk back towards the entrance of the pharmacy, not realising that this would be the last time she ever saw him… At first, there was no reason to be concerned. Robert knew she was waiting, and Elizabeth assumed the conversation had simply taken longer than expected. But after nearly fifteen minutes had passed, she locked the car and walked inside to find him, but he was no longer there. Employees remembered seeing him only moments earlier, but no one could say where he had gone after leaving the store. The contractor had already left too. Elizabeth drove slowly around the surrounding streets, expecting to find Robert walking home or perhaps talking to someone he knew. When she found no trace of him, she returned home and told her husband, Harold, what had happened. He immediately joined the search, and before long other family members and friends were combing the area around the pharmacy. They searched the icy car park, checked nearby streets and vacant lots, and called Robert's name into the cold December night. There was no sign of him. As the hours passed, concern gave way to alarm. Robert had left everything behind. His wages were still at the pharmacy. He had taken no extra clothing, no overnight bag and no personal belongings that suggested he intended to leave home. More importantly, he had disappeared within minutes of telling his mother exactly where he was going. During the early hours of Tuesday morning, the disappearance was reported to the Des Plaines Police Department. Missing teenagers were not uncommon during the late 1970s. Many returned home after a disagreement with their parents or after spending a night with friends, and detectives were accustomed to weighing that possibility before assuming something more sinister had occurred. Robert's disappearance, however, stood apart almost immediately. There was no evidence of family conflict, no indication that he had planned to leave voluntarily and no reason for him to walk away while his mother waited outside. Investigators began where they always did, by establishing a timeline. Detectives interviewed Robert's family, pharmacy employees and customers who had been inside the store that evening. They retraced Elizabeth's movements after she left the pharmacy, checked nearby businesses and spoke with anyone who might have seen Robert after nine o'clock. Every minute between the end of his shift and the moment Elizabeth realised he was missing was examined in painstaking detail. Outside the police investigation, the search gathered momentum. Robert's photograph appeared in local newspapers, accompanied by appeals for information. His description was circulated to neighbouring police departments throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, while classmates, neighbours and family friends distributed flyers in shopping centres, service stations and restaurants. Volunteers searched parks, drainage ditches and open ground surrounding Des Plaines, hoping the teenager had simply become injured or disoriented. Elizabeth refused to remain at home waiting for news. She returned repeatedly to the pharmacy, asking employees to think carefully about the final minutes before Robert disappeared. Had anyone seen him speaking to somebody? Did anyone remember which direction he had walked? Even the smallest detail might prove important. Harold followed every lead that reached the family, no matter how improbable, while detectives quietly pursued dozens of others behind the scenes. As investigators reconstructed the evening, one conversation surfaced again and again: several witnesses remembered Robert mentioning the contractor who had visited the pharmacy earlier that night. He had been excited by the prospect of earning better money and had intended to ask about the work before leaving with his mother. It was the last known reason anyone could offer for why he had walked away from the safety of the pharmacy. Detectives identified the contractor before the end of the day. His name was John Wayne Gacy. Unlike many people approached during missing person investigations, Gacy did not appear reluctant to speak with police. He readily acknowledged visiting Nisson Pharmacy on the evening Robert disappeared and confirmed that he had met with Phil Torf to discuss renovation work. He also admitted mentioning employment opportunities for local teenagers, but insisted he had never held any meaningful conversation with Robert. According to Gacy, he had finished the meeting, left the pharmacy and driven directly home. At first glance, there was little reason to doubt him. Gacy was thirty-six years old and owned PDM Contractors, a successful construction business that employed dozens of workers across the Chicago area. He lived in a comfortable ranch house on West Summerdale Avenue, was active in local Democratic Party politics and had built a reputation as a hardworking businessman who enjoyed being involved in community events. Friends and neighbours knew him as personable, outgoing and generous with his time. On occasion, he even entertained children at fundraising events and hospital visits dressed as a clown he called Pogo. It was an image of respectability that appeared carefully constructed. Yet before the interview was over, Gacy volunteered a detail that detectives hadn't asked for. Later that evening, he explained, Phil Torf had telephoned to say he had accidentally left his appointment book behind at the pharmacy. Gacy claimed he had driven back to collect it before finally returning home. It sounded entirely plausible, so detectives checked it out. Phil Torf told them he had never made such a telephone call. On its own, the discrepancy meant very little. People misremembered conversations, confused times and occasionally lied to avoid embarrassment. Detectives investigating missing persons encountered inconsistencies every day, and most led nowhere. But Robert Piest had vanished within minutes of speaking to the contractor, and Gacy was now the only witness whose account of that evening could not be independently verified. Detectives continued checking every aspect of his story. They confirmed his movements before and after the meeting at Nisson Pharmacy, spoke with people who knew him and began looking more closely at his business. At the same time, officers revisited the pharmacy, hoping someone might remember another detail from that Monday evening. Every statement was compared against the others, every timeline scrutinised for the smallest inconsistency. If Robert had left the pharmacy voluntarily, someone should have seen him. If he had climbed into a vehicle, someone might remember whose. Meanwhile, Robert's family refused to let the search lose momentum. Volunteers continued distributing flyers throughout Des Plaines and neighbouring suburbs, while local newspapers carried appeals for information alongside Robert's photograph. Elizabeth and Harold spoke regularly with detectives, anxious for news but increasingly frustrated by the absence of tangible leads. With each passing day, hope became harder to sustain, yet neither accepted the possibility that Robert had simply run away. Those who knew him best remained convinced that something had happened between the pharmacy door and the car where Elizabeth had been waiting only metres away. One detail would soon prove decisive. During Robert's shift on the evening he disappeared, a co-worker named Kim Byers had briefly borrowed his jacket before returning it to him, slipping a receipt for a roll of undeveloped film into one of the pockets without thinking. When detectives searched Gacy's home two days later, they recovered that same receipt among his belongings, direct physical proof that Robert's jacket, and by extension Robert himself, had been inside a house Gacy claimed he had never entered. It was one of the first hard links between the missing teenager and the contractor, and detectives were determined to leave nothing else unexplored. By now, attention had increasingly settled on John Wayne Gacy. His explanation about the appointment book remained the only account that investigators had been unable to reconcile with the evidence before them. It was hardly enough to justify an arrest, but it was sufficient to seek permission to search his home. On the 13th of December, two days after Robert disappeared, detectives arrived at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue with a search warrant. The modest ranch house gave little indication of the man who lived there. The front garden was neatly maintained, Christmas decorations had already been put up for the season, and inside, the home appeared tidy and comfortable. Family photographs decorated the walls, furniture was carefully arranged and, at first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Detectives searched methodically, photographing each room before opening cupboards, wardrobes and drawers. They examined the basement, garage and outbuildings, looking for any sign of Robert. But there was nothing to indicate that he had ever been there. Instead, investigators began recovering a collection of items that, while not illegal in themselves, seemed increasingly difficult to explain. Several pairs of handcuffs were discovered, along with police-style badges and identification cards. There was a starter pistol, syringes, capsules of amyl nitrite and a quantity of pornographic material, including publications depicting young males. Detectives also found a wooden board with holes drilled through either end, an object they believed had been fashioned as some form of restraint. Individually, none of the items connected Gacy to Robert's disappearance. Collectively, however, they presented a markedly different picture from the respectable contractor detectives had first interviewed. It was enough to leave experienced investigators with the uneasy sense that they had not yet uncovered the whole story. Even so, the search produced no trace of Robert Piest. There was no blood, no clothing and nothing that conclusively placed the missing teenager inside the house. By the time detectives left West Summerdale Avenue that evening, they remained exactly where they had begun. Robert was still missing, and the evidence against Gacy remained entirely circumstantial. Most investigations might have stalled at that point. But instead, detectives made a decision that would shape everything that followed. Rather than waiting for another lead to emerge, they kept John Wayne Gacy under constant observation. Over the days that followed, teams of investigators worked in shifts, following him wherever he went. They watched him leave for work each morning, monitored his construction sites and noted every stop he made throughout the day. Gacy soon realised he was being watched. Far from appearing nervous, he seemed almost amused by the attention. He smiled at detectives as they followed him through suburban Chicago, struck up conversations when they crossed paths and, on more than one occasion, invited them inside for coffee or a meal. It was an unusual relationship, one that blurred the line between surveillance and psychological contest. Gacy understood that investigators suspected him, while detectives knew he was fully aware of their presence. Neither side was willing to back down. Gacy’s outward confidence was striking, but detectives were careful not to mistake it for innocence. They had seen suspects project calm before, particularly those convinced they were clever enough to stay one step ahead of an investigation. Instead of reacting to Gacy's behaviour, they continued gathering information, patiently assembling a picture of his life that extended well beyond the disappearance of Robert Piest. His business records were examined. Employees were interviewed. Detectives spoke with neighbours, acquaintances and political associates. Piece by piece, a different side of John Wayne Gacy began to emerge. Several former employees described an unpredictable employer whose charm could quickly give way to intimidation. Others recalled young men who had worked briefly for PDM Contractors before disappearing from the company without explanation. Most had assumed they had simply found work elsewhere. Construction labour was transient by nature, and workers often came and went without much notice. At the time, nobody had thought to question it. They started reviewing reports of other young men who had vanished across the Chicago area during the preceding years, searching for names, addresses or acquaintances that might somehow intersect with the successful contractor from Des Plaines. Soon they found one name that surfaced repeatedly. John Butkovich was eighteen years old when he disappeared in July 1975. He had worked for Gacy before confronting him over unpaid wages. According to family members, Butkovich intended to collect the money he believed he was owed. He was never seen again. When detectives questioned Gacy about Butkovich, he claimed the young man had simply walked away after their disagreement. There had been no violence, he insisted, and he had no idea what became of him afterwards. The explanation echoed the pattern investigators had already begun to notice. Gacy always had an answer. It was usually plausible. It was also remarkably difficult to verify. As detectives dug deeper, more names followed. Gregory Godzik, John Szyc – other young men who had vanished, sometimes after working for Gacy, sometimes after being seen in his company. Individually, none of the disappearances established a criminal pattern. Together, however, they presented investigators with an unsettling possibility. Robert Piest might not have been the first young man to disappear after crossing paths with John Wayne Gacy. Even so, suspicion was not evidence. Despite days of investigation, detectives still could not place Robert inside Gacy's house. The first search warrant had uncovered a collection of disturbing items, but nothing directly connected them to the missing teenager. Without stronger evidence, there was little more they could do than continue watching and hope the investigation produced the breakthrough they desperately needed. That breakthrough came from an unexpected direction. During the surveillance operation, detectives noticed a persistent odour whenever the heating system in Gacy's house was running. Gacy dismissed it casually, suggesting there might be standing water beneath the house or perhaps a dead animal in the crawl space. At face value, the explanation was not unreasonable. Older homes frequently developed unpleasant smells during winter, particularly when furnaces forced warm air through neglected ducting. They had to take his word for it. But soon, things would take an interesting turn… On the evening of the 20th of December, John Wayne Gacy arrived unannounced at the office of his attorney, Sam Amirante, ostensibly to discuss an unrelated civil matter. Gacy knew he remained the focus of the investigation, and the constant police surveillance had become impossible to ignore. According to Amirante, Gacy appeared exhausted. He had been drinking heavily, spoke rapidly and seemed weighed down by days of relentless police attention. At one point, he quietly admitted that the investigation was over. He knew the police would be returning to his house with another warrant, and he also knew what they would eventually find. Looking across the table at his lawyer, Gacy uttered a sentence that would forever change the course of the investigation. He plainly stated: "The boy is dead." Outside, detectives were already preparing to execute another search warrant at the house on West Summerdale Avenue. They still believed they were only searching for Robert Piest. Within hours, however, they would discover that they had been searching for far more than one missing teenager… If you'd like to dive deeper into this case, check out the resources we used for this episode in the show notes. Don’t forget to follow us on social media for more updates on today's case – you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X. We also have a channel on YouTube where you can watch more content. If you enjoy what we do here at Evidence Locker, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now and consider leaving us a 5-star review. This was The Evidence Locker. Thank you for listening!