Solemn and judicially imposing in his black robes, Van Metre listened attentively. Combined with Harker's request and the observation by Dr. Heston that Gacy might respond well to close supervision, a compelling argument had been constructed for probation.
When it was his turn to speak, Dutton reminded the court of the seriousness of the offense. "This defendant gained the confidence of many young people and abused their trust to gratify his desires," said the prosecutor. He recommended that Gacy be given the maximum sentence.
Dutton was convinced that Gacy would be a continuous threat, even on probation or supervision. Consequently, it would have been improper to recommend that the defendant receive less than the full sentence of the law.
Judge Van Metre pronounced a sentence of ten years at the Iowa State Reformatory for Men at Anamosa. It was the maximum allowable at that time for the offense. It would be another decade before the criminal code of Iowa was revised so that under certain circumstances a similar offense could be prosecuted as a form of sexual abuse carrying a maximum penalty of twenty-five years in prison.
"The particular pattern you seem to have chosen is to seek out teenage boys and get them involved in sexual misbehavior," Van Metre said. Although prison would be unsatisfactory for Gacy, the judge remarked it would at least "ensure that for some period of time you cannot seek out teenage boys to solicit them for immoral behavior of any kind. It may possibly serve as a deterrent and a warning to others who might engage in the same kind of activity." Gacy stood impassively beside his attorney as the sentence was pronounced. He showed no surprise and no emotion.
Gacy was given credit on the sentence for eighty-four days already served in the Black Hawk County Jail. Appeal bond was set at twenty thousand dollars.
A week later, unable to raise the bond and with credit for another seven days in jail, he was transported to prison. John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was twenty-six years old when he made the transition from a life of backyard barbecues, house parties, good cigars, and relaxing drinks with friends to existence as denim-clad prisoner number 26526 in a barred cell. In the new life, other men decided what he would have for meals, when he would exercise, what time he would get up in the morning, whom he could write to and visit with.
He was also about to make the transition from husband and father of two children who shared his last name. His wife filed for divorce on the same day and in the same court building where he was sentenced. The marriage was irretrievably shattered by the arrest, disclosure of bisexuality, and criminal conviction.
Marlynn Gacy petitioned for a divorce on grounds that her husband was guilty of cruel and inhuman treatment that endangered her life and health in violation of the couple's marriage vows. Marlynn told the court that she had conducted herself as a loving and dutiful wife at all times during the marriage. She asked for alimony, property, including the car, attorney fees, court costs, and a reasonable division of other possessions. The divorce action was not unexpected. Gacy concentrated on the task of learning to live as a convict. Like every other undertaking he approached, he applied himself and worked hard at it.
A routine psychological examination he took while being processed into the prison system gave no indication that his emotional or sexual problems were so serious that they could not be solved, despite the earlier conclusions of psychiatrists.
Gacy's behavior appeared to bear out the more optimistic determination. He reacted well to the disciplined life of a convict. His reaction was typical of many people who somehow take to a prison environment where they are relieved of the pressures of decision making and earning a living. As Van Metre observed, Gacy was an individual who "behaves himself when people are watching him and he is under the gun."
Gacy settled into the routine amazingly quickly and launched himself into prison society with the same industriousness and earnest concentration he had exhibited when he moved first to Springfield and then to Waterloo as a young businessman. He avoided known homosexuals, and selected most of his prison friends from among other first-time offenders, seeking out those who were not convicted of violent crimes. One of Gacy's close friends in prison said that Gacy showed absolute scorn for homosexuals. He ignored them like the plague. All prisoners maintain some kind of false front, another inmate observed. Exhibiting a hatred for homosexuals may have been Gacy's.
Ray Cornell, who served time with Gacy and later became an Iowa prison ombudsman, witnessed the former Waterloo businessman's professed dislike for homosexuals. Cornell was one of those who knew that Gacy had asked another prisoner for protection because he was afraid he was going to be homosexually attacked.
Homosexual rape is a fact of life in prison, and it is a constant threat, particularly to young inmates. Many young prisoners, menaced with psychologically devastating mass rape by a half dozen inmates or more at a time, accept the protection of an older, stronger man and become his property. Much, perhaps most of the swift, brutal fighting in prisons, the knifings and beatings, is over soft, young first-timers.
Inmate number 26526 appeared to be uninterested in homosexual activities in prison. He impressed his convict friends as being more interested in material success. One of his friends said the John Gacy he knew in prison appeared to be always after money and was almost overly ambitious. He never missed a day of reading The Wall Street Journal if he could help it. And he talked animatedly of the luxurious restaurant he was going to open after he was freed, and bragged about his prosperous business investments.
To most people he felt were entitled to an explanation of why he was in prison, Gacy confided that he was doing time for showing pornographic films to teenage girls. One of his friends who knew the real reason convinced himself that Gacy must have gotten drunk and didn't know what he was doing. It was hard to believe that John Gacy was a homosexual.
On January 7, 1969, Gacy filed for a court-appointed attorney to assist him in appealing the conviction and sentence. Gacy said he was broke and without funds to employ counsel. He could not even pay for the transcription of the court proceedings and other costs.
Judge Van Metre appointed Attorney Henry Cutler to represent Gacy, but a week later Cutler was permitted to withdraw. He was replaced by Richard Knock, a Cedar Falls lawyer.
Dutton, who moved from first assistant in the Black Hawk County Prosecutor's office to the job of prosecutor while Gacy was in prison, vigorously opposed the appeal. He cited two reasons.
"One is the pattern of behavior that got him in trouble with us in the first place, involving his enticing of young boys into compromising sexual relationships," he said. "That's bad and frequently can cause irreparable harm to the young men involved. This was not just gentle persuasion, but also involved force and the use of restraining devices and weapons. I felt it involved a serious threat to young people.
"Second, this man was involved in the type of thing that is not likely to be cured but only restrained for a period of time. Since he had used weapons in the past, I felt it was just a matter of time until he harmed someone." Dutton was unimpressed by a promise of Gacy's to leave the state. A move to Chicago might solve the problem for Iowa, the county attorney realized, but it would not make the convicted sex offender less dangerous.
Dutton considered incarceration to be the only appropriate means of handling Gacy at that time. Jail or probation were the only choices available to deal with a person like Gacy. If therapy of any kind was to be involved, the prevailing theory held that state correctional professionals were more knowledgeable and better equipped to select the proper treatment programs. There was no appreciable attempt to provide therapy for Gacy. On August 28, 1969, the Supreme Court of Iowa dismissed the appeal. The conviction stood.
Accepting the fact that he was in prison for a while, Gacy set about impressing his fellow convicts and the corrections staff alike with his industriousness. He worked excessively hard, even on Sundays. With his background in the fast-food business, he was assigned to the prison kitchen as a cook and salad man. It was a job
he could relate to, and he went about it with spirit.
Virgil Martin, Gacy's supervisor and food-services coordinator at Anamosa, was pleased with the enthusiasm that Gacy brought to the job. The chunky cook was a model prisoner, and the only criticism of him that Martin could think of was that Gacy had to be cooled off sometimes and reminded that he wasn't the boss.
There was a more pleasant surprise for the new inmate than assignment to the prison kitchen. Anamosa boasted a fledgling Jaycee chapter, one of the first organized in an American prison, for Gacy to become involved with. He threw himself back into the work of the service club with the same fervor, dedication, and headlong intensity that he had shown previously in Springfield and Waterloo.
On one Jaycee project alone, he worked 370 hours helping to install a donated miniature golf course inside the prison grounds. He helped with the inmates' annual Christmas drive to recondition toys for poor children. But he was best known for preparing Jaycee banquets, which were so popular that other inmates competed for the opportunity to work on them.
He impressed those around him with his business and organizational ability, as much as with his cooking.
Even in prison he managed to satisfy his need for attention and praise. He earned the Jaycee Sound Citizens Award and other honors. His work with the service club was so outstanding that he was featured in an Iowa newspaper article, which brought him statewide publicity. But all other recognition was eclipsed when he finally realized his goal of leading a chapter of the Jaycees. He was elected president at Anamosa.
Gacy had been in prison for nearly a year when his divorce was scheduled for a final hearing. On September 18, 1969, he was back in the Black Hawk County Criminal Courts Building before Judge George C. Heath. The judge was no stranger to Gacy. It was Heath who had ordered the psychiatric examination before Gacy's guilty plea on the sodomy charge. This time, as attorney Donald H. Canning stood by for Gacy and attorney Frederick G. White stood by Gacy's wife, Judge Heath issued a decree of absolute divorce. The judge stipulated that neither the husband nor the wife would be allowed to remarry for one year.
Marlynn Gacy was awarded custody of the children and property, including the house, car, and most of the furniture. When her husband went to prison he left a mortgage on the house, and an unpaid loan on the Oldsmobile in favor of the Waterloo Savings Bank. Gacy was also directed to pay $350 for his wife's attorney's fees.
Property awarded to Gacy included his movie camera, projector, screen and other film equipment, still camera, record albums, adding machine, typewriter, card table, file cabinets, golf clubs, fishing equipment, men's jewelry, portable radio, clothing, personal books, papers, awards, cookbooks and food-service books and Jaycee items.
Gacy said that the pornographic films confiscated from his home belonged to other Jaycees. They were not claimed.
Marlynn Gacy agreed to provide her former husband with photographs of the children twice yearly at his expense. He never contacted her or sent money for photos, however, and no photos were mailed to him. Heath deferred determination of visiting rights and establishment of the amount of child support until Gacy was released from prison.
The woman returned with her children to the comfort and security of Springfield, and obtained her old job back at the store. She told a neighbor that she had been unable to hold her marriage together because her husband was a homosexual and abused the children.
On his ride back to Anamosa, morosely peering out the windows of the police car at the ocher-smeared cornfields and dairy farms of rural Iowa, Gacy must have pondered the changes in his life and the role played by a couple of talkative teenagers. When he told his friends that he had done no wrong, it must have been easy to blame the boys for the problems that were leading him back to a convict's cell and away from Waterloo, where he had been a respected businessman and master of his home.
Gacy had lost his position in his community, his home, his wife, and his children, but he hadn't lost all his friends. Charlie Hill and a handful of other chums still believed in Gacy. Hill was still his friend and he wasn't afraid to say so. He believed unabashedly in Gacy's story that he had been framed and was set up by political enemies.
Hill figured that he knew Gacy about as well as anyone. They had been close friends who worked on club projects together and partied together almost from the day Gacy arrived in Waterloo, and Hill had never seen anything that would make him believe that Gacy was the kind of man who would molest young boys. In fact, Gacy projected an image that was just about as macho as it could be. So Hill accepted Gacy's explanation of why he was in trouble. "Somebody," Hill was convinced, "had to believe in the poor guy."
When Gacy was transferred to the prison release center at Newton, the minimum security institution where he was to spend the last few months of his sentence, it was Charlie Hill who showed up to see him on family day. On family day at Newton prisoners were given furloughs of a few hours outside the gates. Gacy qualified, and his friend Charlie Hill drove him thirty miles west to Des Moines for a steak-and-baked-potato dinner. Gacy ate two.
His friend watched, pleased and only mildly surprised as the burly convict dug into the double meal. He was a man who enjoyed eating good food as well as preparing it. It had been months since Gacy had sat down to a similar meal.
That night, as Charlie Hill drove on the long trip back to Waterloo, he felt better about his friend than he had in a long time. Gacy had been a model prisoner, and he was sure to win final approval for early parole.
He had stayed out of trouble, avoided bad companions as best he could, and never missed attending Mass on Sunday. He was so well behaved and nonviolent that when a quarrel flared and another inmate punched him in the face, he didn't even strike back. John Prenosil, who worked in the kitchen with him and later became an Iowa state corrections officer, watched as Gacy shrugged his beefy shoulders, then turned and walked away, his eye already puffy and turning black and blue. Gacy had no intention of dying in prison with a piece of sharpened mattress spring or a filed-down spoon handle jammed between his generous ribs. And he didn't intend to lose good time by getting into a no-win fight with another inmate. The better he held his temper in check, the sooner he would be a free man again.
Gacy's parole was approved eighteen months after he had begun serving time in the Black Hawk County Jail.
No one consulted judge or prosecutor about the parole. The court's jurisdiction over a felon ends once he or she is sentenced. There are no provisions for the sentencing judge or prosecutor to continue their involvement in the fate of a convicted criminal. The convict's immediate fate is in the hands of the Department of Corrections and the Board of Parole.
"Even if Gacy hadn't been paroled after eighteen months," Judge Van Metre pointed out, "he would have been out in less than five years." The Iowa Department of Corrections has a "good-time" formula, similar to those in most other states, that permits a well-behaved convict to compile slightly more than five years' credit off a ten-year sentence.
When Gacy left Newton on June 18, 1970, he was a passenger in a car driven by his friend, Charlie Hill. Momentarily at least, Gacy's enthusiasm for life was dampened. He admitted to his friend that he was depressed by his experience in prison and by the way he had been mistreated and framed on the sodomy charge.
He was also bitter because while he was in prison, his father had died—during the Christmas holidays—and state corrections officials refused to permit him to return to Chicago and attend the funeral. Gacy had told court investigators before he was sentenced that his father had a history of heart trouble.
His mood changed as they neared Waterloo. Gacy began talking passionately about getting a new job there and putting his life back in order. But first, he said, he planned to go to Chicago and visit his mother.
Less than twenty-four hours after his return to Waterloo, Gacy walked into Hill's office and told him he was leaving for Chicago and would see him again in a few days. Gacy never returned.
Fo
otnotes
3 The full names of the children, who have been adopted by their stepfather, have not been used to protect them from embarrassment.
4 Waterloo Courier, December 24, 1978.
5 Ibid.
3 ...
A Model
Neighbor
The bright splash of freshly cut flowers catching and reflecting the warm rays of the midsummer sun contrasted with the pathetic, hunched figure at the grave. The heavy body was shaking with sobs, causing tears to well from the puffy eyes and slide slowly over fat ruddy cheeks as the head bowed and the thick neck shrank into sturdy shoulders.
To someone who knew John Wayne Gacy, Jr. it may have seemed strange. During his father's lifetime there were harsh words and hurt feelings. Now that the elder Gacy was in his grave, one among thousands at the Maryhill Cemetery in northwest suburban Niles, the old hurts were engraved into the relationship between father and son forever. There could be no more explanations, no apologies. The misunderstandings could not be changed. Yet, it appeared that in death Gacy's father was closer to him than in life.
Gacy was deeply grieved that he had not been able to attend his father's funeral. He was hurt that, as the last of the remaining males in the immediate family, he could not have been there to comfort his mother and sisters. It also distressed him that he could not pay his final respects to his father, whom he loved despite their misunderstandings.
Gacy visited the sprawling cemetery that covers about one tenth of the land area of the attractive Chicago suburb many times during the years after his father's death. Most often he stopped there when he was troubled, bringing fresh flowers to place on the grave.
He always visited the grave on Christmas. Holidays were important to Gacy, and Christmas was the most important of all. It meant good food, gifts, and the warmth of a family that was close and loving. Now the Christmas period marked the anniversary of his father's death. The big man cried at the grave.
The Man Who Killed Boys Page 5
