Edward Low
Criminology Fall 2013 Professor Ortiz
INTRODUCTION
On March 17, 1942, John Wayne Gacy was born into an Irish middle-class family. His parents were Marion Gacy and John Gacy Sr. Gacy Jr. had enjoyed a uninteresting childhood until he suffered a head injury at a playground when he was 11. Up until age 16, Gacy had suffered blackouts due to the injury. After all he was put through, he worshipped his father like a hero, despite the fact that his father was an abusive alcoholic with a bad temper and an intense hate for homosexuals. Gacy was often accused and beaten by his father for being sickly.
In the year of 1964, he married his co-worker Marlynn Myers. He moved to her home state of Iowa to take a position in her father’s fast food business. Soon enough, Marlynn gave birth to two children. Some time after, rumors began to spread that Gacy were making sexual advances towards his male employees. In 1968, he was indicted of sodomizing a teenage employee, Mark Miller.
10 years later, he was arrested on accounts of multiple murders. He was tried and convicted in 1970. John Gacy Jr was finally executed on May 10, 1994.
John Wayne Gacy was a convicted serial killer who murdered 33 young males. His nickname was the Killer Clown. As a child. he was often severely beat by his drunken father because he had congenital heart disease and was seen as abnormal in the family. When he first started attending school, other students teased him. Sometime later, he discovers that he was strongly attracted to males. In 1968, he was convicted of his first sexual offense and was sentenced to ten-years imprisonment. He was given parole after showing exemplary behavior after eighteen months. In 1972, he was convicted of his first known murder of a teenage male named Timothy McCoy. Between these 4 years, he had continued to sexual assault young males. Three criminology theories can be