Boys Enter the House

by David Nelson

  Many of them had now come to take the stand.

  Opening statements began on February 6, 1980, in a courtroom inside the Criminal Court Building on California Avenue, presided over by Judge Louis Garippo, formerly a state’s attorney himself who had helped prosecute Richard Speck. Jury selection had taken place in Rockford, where—with help from media consultants—the news coverage of the case had been deemed least pervasive.

  Now a swarm of media moved inside the courtroom to take up additional seats installed for the trial. They crowded in alongside family members, friends, and curiosity seekers looking to observe macabre history.

  Metal detectors in the lobby ensured safety of the proceedings. But even so, the thought of revenge had crossed several minds. Gregory Godzik’s father, unable to attend all of the trial because of ill health, later told the Chicago Tribune, “I’d probably kill him myself.”

  Lola Woods, speaking on camera to Channel 7, told a reporter, “I’d like to see them do something to him besides putting him in an institution. I’d like to see him be … well, killed, if I got my feelings to say.”

  James Stapleton remembered security stopping the father of a victim for carrying a plastic fork. When the guards refused to let him in, the father erupted in anger. They only acquiesced when he told them who he was. The angry father sat beside James that day in court. “During that trial, I was always waiting for somebody to jump up and do something and try to get this guy because there were so many victims,” James Stapleton said.

  James’s father, Bill Stapleton, brought his own anger inside the court with him. “Dad wanted to go up to Gacy and wring his neck,” Juanita said. “The police told Dad if he got out of his seat one more time, they were going to have him arrested.”

  Another victim’s father told a cousin how he intended to bring a pistol to the courthouse and was deterred only when he saw extensive security around the building.

  Thirty-three counts of murder awaited John Wayne Gacy, as he stepped out, escorted by the bailiff. He’d lost a bit of weight, and his hair had turned slightly gray. Since his arrest, he’d caused little trouble in jail,* though he’d often complained of heart troubles. In one of his three-piece suits, he took a seat at a table alongside his lawyers, Sam Amirante and Bob Motta.

  As Judge Garippo gaveled the proceedings into order, a hush fell upon the crowded courtroom.

  “I want you to picture, if you will, a young boy.” Bob Egan commenced the prosecution’s opening statement. “He is fifteen years old. He is a sophomore in high school, he is a gymnast at the high school and in the evening works at a pharmacy.… His name is Robert Piest.”

  Egan proceeded to guide the courtroom through the evening of December 11, 1978, to Nisson’s Pharmacy, where Rob Piest had been working and saving up for a car. Egan told them how a contractor had arrived at the store that evening and talked loudly about hiring young men for summer jobs. He told them, in detail, how Piest had left behind his own mother to discuss a job later that same evening.

  Rob Piest’s family, as well as the families of the other victims, listened as Egan walked them through Rob’s murder. He discussed how Piest turned down the suggestion of sexual activity inside the contractor’s home, how the contractor instead talked about sometimes dressing as a clown and performing rope tricks. Egan told them how this rope trick brought about Piest’s death, and how, in the aftermath, John Gacy went about his life, answering a phone call with Piest still convulsing on his floor, even sleeping with Piest’s body in his own bed that night.

  He explained how the first victim had come to Chicago on board a Greyhound bus. How he’d spent the night at Gacy’s home. How, according to Gacy, the boy had come into his bedroom with a knife the next morning. And how they’d wrestled and fallen to the ground, where the knife entered the boy’s body.

  Egan talked about more boys. John Butkovich in 1975, whose remains were found out underneath the shed of Gacy’s garage. Darrell Samson in April 1976, whose remains were the last to be recovered in March 1979, underneath the dining room of Gacy’s house.

  And then Randy Reffett, who stopped at home after a dentist appointment and later met up with a friend, Sam Stapleton. Both ended up in the crawl space, just weeks before their other friend, Billy Carroll.

  There was Michael Bonnin who lived near Wrigley Field, and Rick Johnston, who came into the city from Bensenville for a concert at the Aragon in Uptown. Gregory Godzik, who left his date, Judy Patterson, on an evening in December 1976. John Szyc, not a month after, who left his taxes on his table, and whose car and possessions were found at the Gacy house. “John Szyc disappeared off the face of the earth,” Egan said.

  Jon Prestidge, Matthew Bowman, Robert Gilroy—all young men at the edge of adulthood—plucked out of 1977 without warning. John Mowery disappeared into the raindrops of a fall night. Russell Nelson vanished on a crowded street. Robert Winch boarded a bus to Chicago and never returned. Tommy Boling spent an evening in a bar and left behind a wife and son. David Talsma never came home from a concert.

  And Billy Kindred, who called his fiancée, telling her he’d be there soon, and never showed. Timothy O’Rourke, who washed up in the Des Plaines River. Frank Landingin, just nineteen, who’d gotten himself into trouble with the law, before making his way to the house on Summerdale. And last, the victim immediately before Rob Piest, James Mazzara, who’d spent a final Thanksgiving among his family.

  After their names had been spoken, Egan related how Gacy eventually found himself in police custody. He discussed the case that would come into view, pointing to a clear verdict of guilt.

  The defense team spoke next, explaining that Gacy should be found insane. A litany of experts would prove their point, they claimed. Yes, John Gacy had done some awful things, but they’d been done out of insanity, a cycle of violence he’d had no control over.

  Marko Butkovich began for the family members that next day, Thursday, February 7, taking the stand to discuss the life and disappearance of his son, John.

  “Mr. Butkovich, how many children do you have now?” Bill Kunkle asked.

  “Now I got five,” Marko said.

  He recalled meeting Gacy in late 1974 after his son had started working for the contractor. He went so far as to say Gacy seemed “to be [a] good man.” Marko had even almost hired Gacy to work on a six-flat building owned by the Butkoviches. At another building Marko owned, Gacy had helped the younger Butkovich decorate an apartment his father had given him.

  Kunkle showed Marko a photograph of a car, which he positively identified as belonging to his son. The 1969 black-and-gold Dodge had been found near the intersection of Sheridan and Lawrence in Uptown with John’s wallet, jacket, and keys inside.

  “Mr. Butkovich, I show you a photograph marked People’s Exhibit No. 5 for identification,” Kunkle stated. “Do you recognize the individual in that photograph?”

  “Yes”

  “[Who] do you recognize it to be?”

  “My son John.”

  “Mr. Butkovich, when you last saw your son on July 29, 1975, was he alive and well?”

  “Yes.”

  “After he walked out the door of your house, did you ever see him again?”

  “No.”

  With John Butkovich’s photograph in hand, Kunkle took it to a four-by-eight board with adhesive slots for each photograph. All twenty-two of them—the number of identified victims at that point—had a name underneath. As each victim’s life and disappearance was recalled, the prosecution would put their image into its slot, which Kunkle thought resembled open coffins. The board became known as the “gallery of grief.”

  Although the defense later objected to its use as “inflammatory,” the judge agreed the board could be used only when the prosecution referred to a specific victim.

  Cross-examination of each family member was short. Sam Amirante later stated that he and his team hesitated to put too much additional emotional pressure on the life and death witnesses.

  De
lores Vance, the mother of Darrell Samson, spoke of “burning up” four cars in her search for her son. She’d looked for him in West Virginia, where’d he been born, as well as Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Indiana, and even California. “I found myself all hours of the night walking the street, going from place to place looking for him,” Delores told the court. “I found myself with blisters to the bottom of my feet that big,” indicating the size with her hands.

  Before he disappeared, Darrell had planned to marry his girlfriend. Now, his portrait took its spot beside that of John Butkovich.

  “My mom took my brother and I to the trial,” Randy Stapleton recalled. He remembered proceedings coming to a stop when Gacy’s lawyers protested the presence of two young men—similar to the type and age Gacy had murdered—for the jury to see. “And really, I shouldn’t have even been there,” said Randy, who was only fifteen at the time of the trial. “I was too young.”

  Juanita went every day with her parents to the trial. She was in the courtroom the day her mother, Bessie Stapleton, took the stand under the gaze of her family and the man who’d murdered her son, just feet away.

  “Call your attention, Mrs. Stapleton, to May 13, 1976,” Bob Egan said, “did you see Samuel on that day?”

  “Yes, I come home from work and I seen him,” Bessie replied.

  “Did he have occasion to leave at any time that day?”

  “Yes, he said he was going to his sister’s.”

  “When he left that day to go to his sister’s house, did you ever see him again?”

  “No.”

  Egan moved on. “Did your son Samuel wear any particular type of jewelry?”

  “Yes,” Bessie answered. “He wore a bracelet, chain bracelet.”

  Egan drew something from an envelope and held it out for her to see. “I ask you, Mrs. Stapleton, to examine the contents of an envelope labeled People’s Exhibit No. 8.”

  She replied, “That’s Sam’s bracelet.” She paused. “God, why …”

  Bessie Stapleton, who’d always been so strong, who’d been feisty, who’d walked picket lines protesting slumlords in her neighborhood, now faltered at the sight of her son’s bracelet, once permanently welded around his wrist.

  She fainted and slid from the chair in the witness stand.

  Court attendants rushed to help her, and Judge Garippo quickly instructed the jury to leave the courtroom. But they’d seen plenty. Moments later, in their absence, Bessie was carried out from the courtroom.

  Myrtle Reffett took the stand once the jury had returned to their seats. Under questioning from Bill Kunkle, she relayed how her son, Randy, had come home from the dentist that afternoon in May 1976 and showed her the cap on his left front tooth before heading out.

  Kunkle asked her about the X-rays taken of Randy’s body back in 1974.

  Myrtle displayed emotion when Kunkle showed her the photograph of her son. “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she said.

  Myrtle completed her testimony. Her son’s face had now joined Butkovich and Samson on the gallery of grief.

  Neither Chris nor Clyde Reffett, Randy’s younger brothers, attended the trial, though like the Stapletons, Myrtle and Charles Reffett attended every day. “They didn’t want us to be part of none of that,” Clyde said.

  Chris is more adamant: “I just really didn’t want no part of that at all.”

  Shirley Stein, the mother of Michael Bonnin, talked about the last time she saw her son, just days after Randy Reffett and Samuel Stapleton went missing. She talked about the fishing license found in John Gacy’s house, a clue that had led police to call her one day in December 1978.

  Esther Johnston spoke at times in too great of detail about her son Rick’s disappearance, often going into thoughts she had had or conversations between her and her son.

  “Mrs. Johnston, if you will just listen to the question and answer it, please,” Judge Garippo instructed her.

  “I’m leading to—I have to tell you why—”

  “Just answer the question that Mr. Sullivan is asking you,” Judge Garippo said.

  But again, Esther Johnston continued, explaining how she’d given Rick a card with his sister’s phone number, and how it was a bad neighborhood, and if he didn’t meet up with his friends by any chance—

  “Objection,” Sam Amirante called out.

  She tried to continue: “It’s a big place, call me, and I said if—”

  “Object! I don’t know what Mr. Sullivan is trying to do. Let him ask the questions instead of just asking her for a narrative. Obviously, he’s intent—”

  “I have to tell why—” Esther Johnston insisted.

  At that time, Judge Garippo asked Esther Johnston to “relax.” But as the questioning continued, both sides gave leeway, as she continued explaining the search for her son. When she finished, Rick’s photograph joined the others.

  After a brief recess, court resumed, at which point, Bessie Stapleton returned to the stand.

  “Mrs. Stapleton, are you composed now?” Judge Garippo asked without the jury present.

  “Yes, I am,” she said.

  The jury filed back into the courtroom.

  The prosecution team continued through the last day of Sam’s life.*

  As steadily as she could, Bessie recalled the moment he left the house. And when she was shown his photograph yet one more time, she confirmed, “That’s my son Sam.”

  Eugenia Godzik recounted those final days in 1976 leading to her son’s disappearance, which she first noticed one morning when she saw his bed had not been slept in.

  Like so many of the others, Greg had been looking for a good-paying job. He’d found it with John Gacy, who paid him $5.50 an hour after school, according to Eugenia.

  Eugenia went on to tell the court how she’d spoken with Gacy himself over the phone not long after her son’s disappearance. And how he’d told of a message Greg had left on his answering machine, a messaged he claimed to have erased.

  While Greg’s mother—and eventually his sister—testified, Judy waited in a backroom to be called out. By now, Judy Patterson was eighteen years old. That morning, arriving at the courthouse, she was rushed inside away from the media lingering in the halls with flashbulbs and questions.

  “I was scared to death,” she said of her testimony, the only day she chose to attend.

  With all eyes upon her, she was led into the courtroom in front of hundreds of eyes. She was sworn in and took her seat on the stand.

  “Directing your attention back to December 11 and December 12, 1976, did you know a person, at that time, by the name of Gregory Godzik?”

  “Yes.” She recounted that evening mostly from a timeline perspective—the seven o’clock meet-up, the midnight drop-off at her house, and the thirty minutes she spent in Greg’s car as they lingered in the driveway.

  “Did you ever see him again after that night?” Kunkle asked.

  “No.”

  “After you hadn’t seen Gregory for a few days, did you do anything with regards to trying to find him?”

  “I went to Mr. Gacy’s house,” Judy said.

  “Did you talk to anyone at that location?”

  “Yeah, I talked to Mr. Gacy.”

  Kunkle continued. “Do you see that person that you are referring to as Mr. Gacy here in the courtroom today?”

  Judy’s nerves elevated now, as she knew she had to look at John Wayne Gacy squarely in the face. Among the sea of faces staring up at her, she had difficulty finding him.

  “He had lost a lot of weight in jail,” she recalled, “so it was hard for me.… They were all looking at me like, ‘Oh my God, she’s fucking up.’ [But] I found him.”

  Judy pointed. “Right there.”

  “May the record reflect the witness referred to and identified the defendant, John Wayne Gacy.”

  Of particular interest to the prosecution was that conversation she’d had with Gacy inside his home, while her friends wa
ited outside for a tow truck. “I asked him if he knew anything about Greg,” Judy said. “And he said that Greg told him that he was going to run away.” Judy explained how Gacy talked boastfully about being in the syndicate, or the mob. “And he said, if you have any questions, to call me, and he gave him his contractor’s card and I left.”

  Judy underwent a short cross-examination. When she stepped down from the stand and left the courtroom, her boyfriend Gregory Godzik’s portrait had now joined the others.

  After his mother’s testimony, Billy Carroll took his place on the gallery of grief, staring out into the crowded courtroom with his boyish smirk. Violet Carroll spoke about Billy’s departure sometime around midnight on the evening of June 13, 1976.

  “He said he’d be back in one hour,” Violet stated.

  “Did you ever see your son again?”

  “No.”

  During cross, Sam Amirante asked briefly about Billy’s friends. “Do you know the kind of people that William used to hang out with?” Amirante asked.

  Bob Egan objected, and though Violet responded “Yes,” the objection was sustained.

  The defense until then had attempted not to poke holes in any of the witnesses’ testimonies but rather to subtly undermine each victim as a hustler, a “homosexual,” or a troublesome youth, bound to find his way to a place like Gacy’s house. Later, they would try this for Jon Prestidge, too, during their questioning of his friend Roger Sahs about Prestidge’s alleged hustling at Bughouse Square. Amirante had pressed him on the nature of the bar where they’d met, then further on Sahs’s knowledge of male sex work.

  The prosecution moved to the victims of 1977, beginning with John Szyc, whose mother, Rosemarie, took the stand on his behalf.

  Patti Szyc had since moved back to Chicago and gotten a job working at a bank. “I had Wednesdays off,” Patti remembered. “And I would go to the trial.…” The day her mother testified was in fact a Thursday, but the bank acquiesced. “The bank was very nice; they gave me bereavement leave for the days I needed off.”