The Serial Killers: John Wayne Gacy Murders

The John Wayne Gacy Murders Many deranged people throughout the history of the United States have earned the infamous title of “Serial Killer”, however there may not be another serial killer more deserving of the title than John Wayne Gacy. Serial Killers are the real life monsters that your mom and dad told you do not exist. John Wayne Gacy was one of the most feared and active serial killers of all time and there is a reason he is one of the most famous. In this paper we will discuss John Wayne Gacy’s career as a serial killer, how he was finally arrested, and how differences in technology has changed between the time John Wayne Gacy was arrested and now, and how these technological differences could have made a difference in catching him.

Gacy’s first of many of his serial killings was in 1972, when Gacy sexually assaulted and murdered 15 year-old Timothy McCoy (Laws, 2017), however it was not discovered until later that this was John Wayne Gacy’s first murder. What was believed to be the beginning of Gacy’s life as a serial killer came in July of 1975, when one of Gacy’s employees, John Butkovich, ended up missing after an argument he had with Gacy about money that he was owed. In December of 1976, another one of Gacy’s employees disappeared, Gregory Godzik (Murderpedia, 2017). The parents of both victims urged police to consider John Wayne Gacy as a possible suspect, however police ignored the requests and did not discover Gacy’s criminal record. The full list of John Wayne Gacy victims is; Timothy McCoy, John Butkovitch, Darrell Sampson, Randall Reffett, Sam Stapleton, Michael Bonnin, William Carroll, Rick Johnson, Kenneth Parker, Michael Marino, Gregory Godzik, John Szyc, Jon Prestidge, Mathew Bowman, Robert Gilroy, John Mowery, Russel Nelson, Robert Winch, Tommy Boling, David Talsma, William Kindred, Tomithy O’Rourke, Frank Landingin, James Mazzara, and Robert Piest (Murderpedia, 2017). All of Gacy’s victims were between the ages of 14 through 21, and disappeared between the years 1972 through 1978 (Murderpedia, 2017). There are also eight more young men that were believed to be murdered by Gacy, however their remains were never recovered so they could not pin

One technological advance that would have made a huge difference in the arrest of John Wayne Gacy is the sexual offender registry. The sexual offender registry that was not introduced until long after Gacy was executed, would have made such a huge difference because if it was around when Gacy was alive, then he would have been a registered sex offender because of his previous criminal record. The police and investigators would have known about John Wayne Gacy and his criminal past much earlier in the investigation, which would have contributed to stopping him earlier in his serial killing career. Another technological advance that would have made a difference in the arrest of John Wayne Gacy is Facial Recognition. Facial Recogntion allows police officer to take a snapshot of someone face, and then it runs the picture through criminal databases that to find matches (Rivera, 2011). If this was available in the 1970’s, police officers could have taken a snapshot of John Wayne Gacy’s face, and then could have found all of the matches for criminal acts he had done in the past. Facial Recognition also would have been helpful if Gacy had tried to make a run for it. A farther technological advance that would have been useful are GPS