Boys Enter the House

by David Nelson

  She left the courtroom and never came back. She hadn’t gotten what she’d come for. The shoe would have gotten his attention. “I wanted him to see my face. I look like my brother. I wanted him to see my face.”

  Although he never saw Denise’s face, Gacy saw Francisco Sr.’s as he took the stand on behalf of his son.

  Francisco told the court of Dale’s arrest for battery against his girlfriend, Stephanie. The bond slip from November 3, 1978, found inside Gacy’s home, had been another piece of the prosecution’s case.

  “Did you see Frank in the early morning hours of November 4 … ?”

  “Yes,” Francisco said, adding that they met at a tavern at Foster and Broadway early that morning.

  “And did you part from each other’s company, did you walk off in different directions on the street at that time?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Did you ever see Frank again after that?”

  “No, sir.”

  Once more, Dale Landingin walked off into the night. In front of the jury’s eyes, he walked west down Foster in search of Stephanie. His mistakes were laid bare for them, but the certainty of his murder now echoed in the courtroom as his photo joined the many others forming the now infamous gallery of grief.

  James Mazzara’s father, Albert, took the stand. He was the last of the three fathers who spoke during the trial. In 1978 the family had last seen him on the day after Thanksgiving. Gacy had remembered him, both because James was the penultimate victim and fresh in his memory upon his arrest and because of his nickname, Mojo, which Albert noted as well.

  James Mazzara, only nineteen, joined the other boys, with one last space to fill.

  Elizabeth Piest quietly stepped up toward the witness box and was promptly sworn in.

  “How many children do you have?”

  “I have three,” she said.

  “You have three children now?”

  “No, I have two.”

  After she identified them, Terry Sullivan asked, “Would you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what type of an education Rob had?”

  “He was a sophomore at Maine West High School,” she said. “He was on the gymnastic team in his first and second year. He was on the honor roll in his freshman year. And he was in Scouts, and he was about to make his Eagle Scout. He was two merit badges away and a community service project of cleaning the Des Plaines River, and then he would have been an Eagle, which he wanted very badly.”

  No doubt, it was not lost on many in the courtroom that Rob had been found in the very river he’d been cleaning up.

  She led them next to Nisson’s Pharmacy—how Rob had gotten the job, how much he’d been paid. She told them how he’d had a crush on a girl named Carrie.

  She spoke of their routine in the evenings he worked. She remembered the blue Pacific Trails parka he’d worn, the very one he’d put on as he went out the door to talk to a contractor about a job.

  “I’ll wait for you,” she’d told him.

  “And did he leave then?”

  “I didn’t see him after that.”

  Once more, the story of Rob Piest unfolded, as it has unfolded many times. Much has been said about his death against the others. How he was a different type of boy compared to the others—compared to Randy Reffett, Samuel Stapleton, Billy Carroll, Billy Kindred, and Frank Landingin, or really any of the “city” boys like Gregory Godzik, Johnny Szyc.

  And while the young boy from the suburbs did get more attention—from the cops, from the media, and even from the prosecution—what remains true is that Rob was the last. His death brought it all to an end, when it should have ended long before that.

  The gallery of grief was complete now with twenty-two faces, and yet so many more waited to be revealed. Each square peered out. A smile, a grin. Twenty-two young men looked out into a room full of their loved ones and the man who’d torn them all apart.

  Linda Mertes had fallen ill with the flu in the days leading up to her testimony. After two days of families and friends, the prosecution focused on Nisson’s Pharmacy, to the investigation and arrest of Gacy himself.

  “I had called the attorney and said I couldn’t get there,” she said.

  “No, you have to be here,” the attorney said, even offering to send an ambulance to bring her.

  “OK,” she said. “I’ll be there no matter what.”

  On the stand that Saturday, February 9, 1980, she discussed meeting Gacy previously at the pharmacy, but again on that day, December 11, 1978, in the presence of her coworker, Rob Piest.

  Linda remembered finally standing up to point Gacy out. The prosecution had prepped her for that moment. And since that moment, there have been memories that have dropped off over the years, perhaps her mind’s way of protecting her. This moment in particular, however, continues to resonate in her memory.

  Linda stayed in the courtroom for a little while after her testimony, listening to the other witnesses. “[There were] things that I heard in there that I never want to hear again,” she said.

  Kim Byers, the cashier who wore Rob Piest’s parka to keep warm from the December air coming in through the pharmacy’s front door, recounted how she slipped a receipt inside the coat, perhaps in an effort to strike up a conversation with the cute boy later that evening.

  Phil Torf spoke about his friendship with Gacy.

  And then the testimony pivoted, this time toward the investigators who’d looked into Piest’s disappearance.

  The testimonies continued into the next week, Monday, February 11, with a tollway worker and a tow truck driver who’d both helped Gacy get out of a ditch, presumably after he’d discarded the body of Rob Piest from the I-55 bridge over the Des Plaines River.

  Lieutenant Kozenczak discussed recovering Kim Byers’ receipt from the trash during the first search of Gacy’s house, days after Rob’s disappearance.

  Business associates and employees came up to describe how Gacy had acted as police activity around his home ramped up that December.

  David Cram and Michael Rossi, the two young men who had lived with and worked for John Wayne Gacy, both took the stand.

  Testifying first, Cram recalled meeting Gacy on July 26, 1976, while hitchhiking along Elston Avenue. Gacy had dropped him off at his destination but asked to meet him later to discuss a possible job. “He explained how an individual could progress in the company on their own standings or morals,” Cram explained. “Like, you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours, is what it boiled down to.”

  For Cram, a high school dropout who’d been kicked out of his family’s house, John Gacy provided support. Less than a month later, Cram moved into the Summerdale house, which now had ample space after Gacy’s divorce.

  “He was a jolly type of guy,” Cram said in response to questioning about Gacy’s company, PDM, and Gacy’s personality. “He always played the official part all the time, and he liked having things his own way, and he liked doing more or less what he wanted, but he still like molded into the crowd.”

  Among his teenage employees, Gacy often allowed full access to a well-stocked bar, as well as drugs hidden throughout the house. “He had them in the refrigerator,” Cram said, “behind the bar, in a couple of places, behind the pictures.”

  Much of Gacy’s drug supply came from the very pharmacies he’d been hired to remodel. Gacy and his young workers simply helped themselves. For a time, in an effort to lose weight, Gacy would take speed every day. Other times, he smoked marijuana socially or took tranquilizers.

  “One time when I was cleaning up the garage, I found a couple of wallets with identification in them,” Cram said. “I looked through them, and one didn’t fit me, and one did … so I went in the house and I asked him, I said, you mind if I have these.…”

  “Why did you want the identification?” Sullivan asked.

  “So I can go out drinking.”

  “Did Mr. Gacy say anything to that question?”

  “Yes,” Cram said. “He chuc
kled it off and he said that I didn’t want those, those were from some deceased person or something like that.…”

  “Did he at any time give you any other items of jewelry?”

  “Yes,” Cram said again. “He gave me a couple of watches.…”

  On Cram’s birthday that year, he arrived at the house to find Gacy in his clown costume. He’d been on his way to a charity event but decided to surprise Cram. They drank for a bit, until Gacy pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

  Although he was drunk, Cram watched as Gacy performed the “trick” on himself first. Then Gacy asked to perform it on Cram.

  “Were you able to escape from the handcuffs?”

  “No,” Cram replied. “The trick was, you needed the key.”

  Cram panicked as Gacy’s tone shifted. Still in clown makeup, he grabbed the chain between the cuffs and began swinging Cram around the room. “He said, ‘I’m going to rape you,’” Cram recounted.

  Eventually, Cram managed to kick Gacy in the head, overpowering him until he finally agreed to unlock the handcuffs. Despite this event, Cram continued living with Gacy.

  When Cram did finally move out of the house not long after, he continued a business relationship with Gacy. In 1977 Cram worked with him off and on remodeling a line of drugstores all over the country.

  In August that year—again on Cram’s birthday—Gacy assigned him work down in the crawl space digging trenches for clay pipes to be installed by a plumber. From the stand, Cram identified the detached crawl space entryway, a door which investigators had pried up from a closet area in Gacy’s house.

  Cram went on to discuss the final days before Gacy’s arrest, including after the first search warrant when, finding mud in his house, Gacy went down into the crawl space with a flashlight to see if the police were hiding there.

  Upon cross-examination, Bob Motta asked clarifying questions about some of the events. When he arrived at the question of Gacy’s bisexuality, however, he went further.

  “Did he ever ask you to participate in any sexual conduct with him?”

  “Well, yes, he did,” Cram answered.

  “And did you participate?”

  The prosecution objected.

  “Do I have to answer that?” Cram asked.

  After a brief sidebar, Cram was asked again so he could officially assert his Fifth Amendment rights in front of the jury.

  Minutes later, Motta went in again. “Did you ever have any relations with Mike Rossi?”

  “I’ll go with the Fifth Amendment on that,” Cram said, after objections from the prosecution were overruled.

  “Was Mike Rossi your lover?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Your lover,” Motta said. “Did you make love to Mike Rossi?”

  The objection here was sustained.

  “Would you characterize John Gacy as your lover?” Motta asked.

  “Isn’t that within the same—?” Cram tried to say.

  “Answer the question,” Judge Garippo told him.

  “No, I would not.”

  Later, during redirect with the prosecution, Sullivan asked, “Did you, at any time, help Mr. Gacy bury any bodies down there?”

  “No, I did not,” David Cram replied.

  Michael Rossi himself had retained a lawyer, former Cook County state’s attorney Edward Hanrahan.* In his presence and the presence of the jury, Rossi testified about meeting and working for Gacy.

  Like Cram, Rossi had a somewhat listless lifestyle. He’d dropped out of high school during his sophomore year, choosing instead to work himself up as a carpenter. After Cram moved out of Gacy’s house, Rossi moved in in September 1976 until about April 1977. During this time, several victims were killed, including Greg Godzik, whom Rossi remembered working with at a pharmacy job.

  In January 1977 Rossi purchased the ’71 Plymouth Satellite from Gacy, which Gacy had shown him parked at a location north of Bughouse Square. With keys provided by Gacy, Rossi drove the car back to Summerdale Avenue.

  Identifying the title to the car, Rossi then noted the name of the previous owner—John Szyc—as well as Szyc’s signature signing it over to Rossi and Gacy, who eventually transferred it solely to Rossi. “He told me the man was selling his car,” Rossi testified. “He had no further use of it because he was going to California.”

  In summer 1977, Rossi had also helped dig a trench in the crawl space. This one had been on the southwest corner.

  “And if someone deviated or started to go off line to the specific plan that the Defendant laid out for the digging, what would he do?”

  “He would get very upset.”

  For defense, Amirante came in hot, zeroing in on Rossi’s retention of his own lawyer, Ed Hanrahan.

  “How many times did you rehearse your testimony before you came up here?”

  “Not once,” Rossi answered.

  Amirante was incredulous. “Mr. Rossi, didn’t you tell my investigators when they came to talk to you that you had a high-priced lawyer and he said not to talk to us?”

  Despite objections, Rossi succinctly answered, “It’s my right.”

  Amirante asked extensively about the clowning Gacy had done, something Rossi too had taken part in on occasion. “And what was your name as a clown?”

  “Patches.”

  Amirante used this point in the testimony to paint Gacy as carefree, capable of jests and play. Rossi detailed the routines he and Gacy went through while performing: balloon animals, whistles, jokes, at picnics and birthday parties or hospital events.

  “Did he ever hurt any of the kids?”

  “No.”

  “I am not blocking the view of your lawyer back there watching you?” Amirante later asked him, naturally to an objection by the prosecution.

  And much like Cram, Amirante again confronted Rossi about the possibility of sexual relations between him and his employer. “Mr. Rossi, you engaged in sexual activities with Mr. Gacy, didn’t you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Rossi admitted that Gacy had asked multiple times. After Rossi’s refusal, Gacy would “pout.” Blond-haired and slender, Rossi fit the general “type” Gacy had spoken of.

  Amirante too went hard on the Plymouth Satellite. “And as a matter of fact, when you applied for that title, Mr. Rossi, you forged John Szyc’s name, didn’t you?”

  “No, sir,” Rossi said.

  “Did you ever use [Gacy’s] house when he was out of town?” Amirante later asked.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Just to go over there,” Rossi replied, “have a couple of drinks.”

  Amirante continued pressing Rossi on this, specifically on frequency and duration of his visits, something that varied according to Rossi.

  “Did he ever rape you?”

  “No, sir,” Rossi said.

  “You hesitated a little bit,” Amirante said. “What were you hesitating for?”

  “It’s my prerogative.”

  Rossi also detailed several scrapes with Gacy, particularly one outside his mother’s tavern in Cicero.

  “What did you do to him?” Amirante asked.

  “Punched him.”

  “How hard?”

  “Would you like a demonstration?” Rossi quipped.

  Rossi and Gacy continued their relationship, even after Gacy went to the hospital for his injuries and filed a criminal complaint against his young employee.

  “Did he ever threaten to kill you?” Amirante asked toward the end of the testimony.

  “Many times,” Rossi said.

  The week before his own testimony, Daniel Genty took time off to prepare. Although he testified briefly during the week detailing the evening of the first search, Genty was recalled for a long, marathon testimony covering all twenty-nine of the bodies found on the property, including specific details of anything found upon them, physical measurements, burial positions, and so on.

  To help him study, Genty made flashcards on each of the bodi
es. In the evenings, when his wife got home from work, she helped him. “We’d sit in bed and she’d quiz me for an hour or two,” Genty explained. “And so her reward [was] to sit up front in the section right behind John Gacy.”

  As his wife looked on over the shoulder of John Wayne Gacy, Genty testified for about four and a half hours in total.

  “All the bodies were measured from the skull,” Genty testified, “And the body [Body 1] was nineteen inches from the north wall and twenty-four inches from the east wall, and the skull was ten inches deep.”

  For each set of remains, Genty continued with the same excruciating detail. “As we were removing this body [Body 3], we noted that the soil underneath this body was again still soft,” Genty said. “And again, we probed down into this soil and located another body beneath Body No. 3.”

  Genty recounted how, day after day that late December, hour after hour, they discovered another body, often signified first by a soft spot in the ground.

  “And did you probe in that particular soft spot?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Here we found two bodies.”

  When Genty finished his testimony, even Sam Amirante approached him later to thank him. A security guard working at the courthouse stopped Genty on his way out that day, asking to shake his hand. “That was the best testimony I’ve ever heard,” he said to Genty.

  Later on, the FBI used Genty’s testimony as an example for training.

  The testimony for the next week pivoted to the river bodies, with several pathologists explaining what they found upon examining bodies like Timothy O’Rourke, Dale Landingin, James Mazzara, and Robert Piest.

  Rafael Tovar stepped up to discuss the identification of many of John Szyc’s possessions.

  Tovar also testified to a conversation he’d had with Gacy while transporting him from Des Plaines to downtown. In discussing his penultimate victim, James Mazzara, Tovar remembered how “Mr. Gacy at that point kind of half-smirkingly, half-smiled and said, ‘Yes, really took care of him.’”