Buried Dreams (13 page)

Bad enough to be sick all the time—to have to give up football and basketball, to restrict your physical activities at all times, to be rejected by the military—but to live in the shadow of constant accusation from your father, that was mentally painful, nearly unbearable. It was, in John’s opinion, a kind of rejection that could scar a kid for life.

Doctors at the Psychopathic Hospital who examined Gacy could find no evidence of heart disease. X rays of his chest, his heart, and other internal organs showed that aside from being overweight, John Wayne Gacy was in robust good health.

While he was in the hospital, he was examined by two psychiatrists and a psychologist. Years later, John said that he very carefully explained how each and every accusation against him had come about.

The doctors listened intently to John’s stories. They had, in their possession, the statements of Schroeder, Voorhees,
Lynch, and four others. The colonel’s version of the events were wildly out of synch with everyone else’s. The more the doctors compared John’s stories to the police reports, the sharper the contrasts became. Someone was lying.

In making their evaluation, the doctors also used patient notes compiled by their nurses, who felt that Gacy was a “con man,” even something of a bully. He was pleasant and ingratiating with those in positions of authority, but he behaved in a domineering fashion toward those he perceived to be weak or submissive. When caught in a lie, he became “overly defensive.”

Dr. Eugene F. Gauron conducted the psychological testing on Gacy. In the behavioral-impressions sections of his report, Dr. Gauron wrote:

“John Gacy was very pleasant, friendly, highly talkable in the interview. He prided himself on being a good talker and felt this was a desirable quality which pays off in sales work. There was an element of control in his garrulousness, and he talked extensively only about what he wanted to talk about. It was apparent that John would twist the truth in such a way that he would not be made to look bad. He would admit to socially unacceptable actions only when directly confronted. My general impression was that he was both a smooth talker and an obscurer who was trying to whitewash himself of all wrongdoing.”

Dr. Gauron administered the Wechsler intelligence test, on which Gacy scored a full-scale IQ of 118—placing him in the “bright normal” category—though low scores on the math skills subtest pulled down the average. His verbal subtest scores were high, and the highest of these was in comprehension. Dr. Gauron felt that Gacy’s “high degree of social intelligence” made him aware of “the proper way to behave in order to influence people.” Another doctor who examined Gacy described him as “extremely intelligent.”

The psychological testing showed no motor damage, no organic damage, nothing physically wrong with John Gacy’s brain. Although such tests yield some information about how the brain functions and can be indicative of possible brain damage, this is not their primary function. To be certain that Gacy was not suffering from brain damage of any kind—possibly incurred when he was hit in the head with a swing at the age of fifteen, or when he fell from the second floor of a building at the age of eighteen—an electroencephalogram was taken.
The EEG showed some “asymmetrical eye movement artifacts,” a common problem in an EEG, which often picks up artifacts such as the contraction of the heart or the movement of the eye muscles. Other than the eye movement artifacts, the EEG was completely normal. Doctors concluded that Gacy was not suffering from organic brain damage, and the results of the psychological testing confirmed this diagnosis.

In addition to the EEG and just to make certain, Gacy’s skull was X-rayed. The film showed no abnormalities.

What Dr. Gauron found “most striking” about his interviews with Gacy and the results of the tests—which included Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—was the man’s “total denial of responsibility for anything that has happened to him. He can produce an ‘alibi’ for everything. He alternately blames the environment while presenting himself as a victim of circumstances and blames other people while presenting himself as the victim of others who are out to get him. Although this could be construed as paranoid, I do not regard it this way. Rather the patient attempts to assure a sympathetic response by depicting himself as being at the mercy of a hostile environment. To his way of thinking, a major objective is to outwit the other fellow and take advantage of him before being taken advantage of himself.”

Dr. Gauron’s diagnostic impression was that “the test results do not provide any support for the presence of unusual thought processes. Rather, everything points to a diagnosis of sociopathic personality disturbance, antisocial reaction.”

This diagnosis—sociopath or psychopath or antisocial personality—is a problematic one for psychiatrists and psychologists in that it defines a person whose problems are not primarily emotional or psychological in nature. The sociopath may steal or rape or murder, but the crimes are committed—and repeatedly committed—as a matter of free will and not as the result of any mental illness these doctors are trained to treat.

Sociopaths make up the great majority of criminal elements in every society. Because sociopaths’ activities are not generated out of emotional or psychological illness, the condition is defined as a “personality disorder” or “character disorder.”

A psychiatrist or psychologist can define the symptoms of the disorder, but because the sociopath is propelled by choice rather than illness, the concept becomes almost philosophical,
even theological. In discussing sociopathic personalities, one is forced to deal with such abstractions as the idea of free will; in extreme cases, the sociopath brings some of the people he meets face to face with the very nature of evil itself.

The two psychiatrists who examined Gacy found him competent to stand trial and concurred with Dr. Gauron. Dr. L. D. Amick noted that Gacy seemed “to have no remorse over the admitted deeds. . . .” In their report to the court, Dr. Amick and Dr. Leonard Heston wrote: “We regard Mr. Gacy as an antisocial personality, a diagnostic term for individuals who are basically unsocialized and whose behavior pattern brings them repeatedly into conflict with society. Persons with this personality structure do not learn from experience and are unlikely to benefit from known medical treatment.”

Three weeks after leaving the state Psychopathic Hospital, Gacy appeared before Judge Peter Van Metre in the Tenth Judicial District Court and pled guilty to sodomy. Prosecuting attorney David Dutton, who had been committed to convicting Gacy on the sodomy charge from the first, struck a plea bargain with the colonel’s attorney: If Gacy pled guilty to sodomy, the other charges—burglary, going armed with intent, attempting to suborn perjury, and malicious threats to extort—would be dropped.

Judge Van Metre asked for a presentence report from Drs. Heston and Amick. The psychiatrists seemed to take Gacy at his word on one point at least: The incident with Voorhees was really just a matter of curiosity. Gacy, they wrote, was apparently bisexual, and his behavior, based on what they understood about his personality structure, was more a matter of “thrill-seeking,” a kind of explorative foray into sodomy, than “an absolute fixation on abnormal sex objects.”

Even more encouraging for Gacy, the psychiatrists said that sociopathic individuals like Gacy tend to do best when there are “firm, consistent, external controls on their behavior” and that “intensive parole supervision” might accomplish this goal as well as prison.

Probation officer Jack Harker had also made a presentence investigation and reported to the court. Gacy had told him that the admitted acts were mere “curiosity,” that should
he receive probation he would relocate to Illinois, accept his old job selling shoes, and seek psychiatric help. Harker noted that Gacy was only twenty-six, that he had never been in trouble before, that he was known as a hard worker and a community-minded man. Back in Illinois, Gacy would be in constant contact with his family: respectable, law-abiding people, a family where the father was known as “a strict disciplinarian but fair.”

Harker’s report recommended probation.

Judge Van Metre was a man who had been criticized for handing out what some prosecutors and police thought were excessively lenient sentences.

“I was confident,” John said years later, “that I’d get probation and go to Illinois.”

It wasn’t any new thing, John’s decision to return to his home state. He couldn’t stand his father-in-law and had been thinking of quitting the chicken business and starting something of his own even before the sodomy charge came down. He sure wasn’t being driven out of Iowa: it was a matter of free choice, and it had been a long time coming. John certainly wasn’t going home because, as one of his former Jaycee buddies put it, “two years in town and everything Gacy touched turned to shit.” He could stand the stink if people could stand the truth.

No, going back home on probation would finally yank him out from under Freddie’s thumb, it would get the old colonel started on a business of his own.

They had dropped the other charges—the suborning and extorting, all that happy horseshit—because they knew they couldn’t prove anything. It just wasn’t true. Now all he had to worry about was Voorhees and the sodomy charge.

Even the doctors were on his side: he wasn’t fixated on that shit. He wasn’t a thrill-seeker, just curious, really. The doctors liked him and knew he’d do well on probation. The probation officer agreed. And he had met Judge Van Metre when he was working on some potential legislation for the Jaycees. He knew the man personally.

The only problem was Dutton, eloquent in his ambition. The prosecuting attorney said that the defendant “gained the confidence of many young people and abused their trust to gratify his desires.” Dutton argued that there was a pattern of repeated offenses and that John would be a threat to society
even under the strictest supervision. The guy got his sodomy conviction, but that wasn’t enough for him. Now he wanted the judge to hand down the maximum sentence. Then he could say, “Yeah, I’m the guy who put Gacy away.”

Judge Van Metre reviewed the arguments on both sides, looked down at the defendant, and, as John recalls, “just raked me over the coals.”

“The particular pattern you have chosen is to seek out teenage boys and get them involved in sexual misbehavior.” John couldn’t believe it, “this asshole talking about abusing sacred trust and corrupting and shit.” The colonel was careful not to show any emotion during the lecture, but when Van Metre sentenced him to ten years—the maximum, just what Dutton wanted—John’s knees nearly buckled under him. He felt, for a minute, as if he was going to faint. Still, he kept his cool and didn’t break down until he left the courtroom.

Ten years in the Iowa State Reformatory for Men at Anamosa.

Van Metre had even said he didn’t like sending first offenders to prison but that the sentence would “ensure that for some period of time you cannot seek out teenage boys to solicit them for immoral behavior of any kind.” The kind of shit, John realized later, Van Metre had to say on account of all the publicity in the case. John would have been back in Illinois, on probation, except for the fact that Van Metre didn’t have the guts to stand up to the media.

Ten years.

Dutton later rose from first assistant county attorney to county attorney. By exploiting John, who was still the dumb and stupid kid the Old Man always said he was.

On the same day he was sentenced, in the same building, Marlynn filed for divorce. So Freddy had his way on that one.

He would never see his son again, never see his daughter, all because they took the word of Voorhees over his, because Voorhees “outsmarted” him. “An asshole is someone who is trusting and gullible,” John said later. “I was made an asshole and a scapegoat in Iowa, and when I look back I see myself more as a victim than a perpetrator.”

A victim.

CHAPTER 8

EARLY MORNING IN THE
yard at the Men’s Reformatory at Anamosa, prisoners lounging about, doing lazy time, and here comes John Wayne Gacy, inmate number 26525, moving fast, a man with things to accomplish. Everyone else is in prison denims, but John is wearing his freshly pressed white shirt—a sign of status and privilege—and smoking one of his contraband Hav-a-Tampas. Cigars unavailable in the prison commissary could be gotten from the guards or other prison personnel. A cigar meant clout. John in a cloud of smoke, carrying his black briefcase, on his way to some important meeting.

The other inmates wondered when he ever slept. He was out of his cell after lockup almost every night on special passes. John told them a guy doesn’t slow down just because he’s incarcerated. Gacy: he’d been framed by political enemies in Waterloo and jailed on the chicken-shit charge of showing dirty movies to teenage girls, seventeen-year-old girls a few months shy of eighteen. Jail a guy on a charge like that—give him ten years—it stinks of a frame-up.

On August 28, 1969, the Iowa Supreme Court had dismissed Gacy’s appeal. He was in for the duration, probably at least five years, given Iowa’s “good time” system.

Everyone knew that the man with the white shirt carrying the briefcase and smoking the cigar had been married to the daughter of Harlan Sanders, the founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken empire—a soft deal—but then John had been framed and his old lady couldn’t stand up under the political pressure.

In Marlynn’s divorce petition, she said that she had conducted herself as a dutiful and loving wife during the marriage but that Gacy’s “cruel and inhuman treatment” had endangered her life and health. On September 18, 1969, a decree of absolute divorce was issued. Marlynn was awarded the car, the house, and most of the furniture. John was allowed to keep his movie projector—big joke on the part of Judge Heath right there—and his good-citizenship plaques, his Key Man award, that shit. Marlynn got custody of the children.

John let it be known that his political enemies were screwing him right into the wall, taking everything he owned, everything he had worked to achieve. They had even turned his own wife against him and taken his children from him. You had to feel sorry for the guy.