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November 3, 2017

Chasing John Wayne Gacy

Winner of the Fall 2017 StMU History Media Award for

Article with the Best Introduction

It was December 12, 1978. Just as every morning, Chief Detective Joseph Kozenczak sat in his office on the first floor and went over the reports from the past 24 hours. Sipping some coffee, he started off by reading through Monday’s list of events: “a domestic argument which ended with the police restoring peace, a break-in on Phoenix Drive, a report of an abandoned vehicle, several malfunctioning alarms in businesses requiring police assistance to restore, etc.”1 It wasn’t until midway through the list of Monday’s Report when Joseph Kozenczak came across the name Robert Jerome Piest, a missing persons report filed by his mother Elizabeth Piest.2
John Wayne Gacy as “Pogo The Clown” | Courtesy of Wikimedia commons
Joseph Kozenczak had found this to be very interesting because of the narrative part of the report. As described from the report, the mother and son had a very repetitive routine. Elizabeth would pick up her son at 5:30 p.m. after his gymnastics session at Maine West High School in Des Plaines, Illinois. Then she would have his dinner and milk to eat in the car, and he’d usually eat it as Elizabeth drove to Nisson Pharmacy, where Robert worked. But Monday was a bit different. Rob ate a sandwich. Elizabeth had saved her birthday cake to be cut after picking up Rob from work. She arrived at Nisson Pharmacy at 9 p.m., and she went in to get Rob. Rob asked his mother to wait outside so he could discuss a summer job with a construction contractor. Twenty minutes passed and Elizabeth went to check the parking lot only to find that she was alone. There was no sign of Rob, or this mysterious construction contractor. Not knowing who the contractor was, Elizabeth called her son’s friends and one of the owners of the pharmacy, and found out that his name was John Wayne Gacy, Jr.3 Something about the report didn’t seem right to Detective Kozenczak. He knew Robert had no reason to leave his family, or run away from home, so where was he? He read the report one more time. While reading through the report, Detective Kozenczak found that the young boy Robert was born the same year as his own son, as well as the fact that the two boys attended the same high school (Maine West High School). Detective Kozenczak decided to put “Ronnie” Ron Adams to investigate the Piest missing persons case. He chose Adams because he wasn’t just a good cop, but he also had passion for his job. He knew Adams was the right one for this case. Also Kozenczak knew about the fact that Adams had a family, and had hoped it would make things more personal while continuing the harsh investigation. Adams didn’t waste any time at all. He talked with the two brothers who owned the pharmacy, and found out that the contractor, John Gacy, had been in the store not once, but twice. To check Gacy’s alibi, Adams then called Gacy at 9:15 a.m. and Gacy explained that he had been present at the pharmacy, but only because of some remodeling plans, and to gather or see if there were any tools he needed. He also said, “He had not spoken, nor had any personal contact with the missing boy.” It was at this point that things started to not add up in the mind of Detective Kozenczak.4
Actual suit worn by John Wayne Gacy | Courtesy of Flickr Commons
The investigation “wasn’t getting anywhere fast” as Kozenczak put it. It was not until Detective Jim Pickell stepped out of his office, when things started to take off. The two detectives knew about Gacy’s arrest, but did not know exactly what John Wayne Gacy had been arrested for. Pickell went off in search of what Gacy had been arrested for. Pickell was known to get what he wanted, and always did what he had to in order to obtain it. The two Detectives then read Gacy’s rap sheet, which was filled with numerous crimes, the first and most important: “20 May 1968-Waterloo, Iowa-Sodomy-10 years.” The word “sodomy” stuck into the two detectives’ heads. After going through the rap sheet, the two detectives were both convinced Gacy was deeply involved in the disappearance of Robert Piest.5 Later that day,Detectives Kozenczak, Pickell, Olsen, and Sommerschield went to Gacy’s house to interview him. Kozenczak and Pickell went inside, while Sommerschield and Olsen waited outside on the street. While inside the house, Gacy sat in his recliner, and not much happened except for the same story he gave Adams over the phone. Kozenczak had coaxed Gacy into coming down to the station, and after a few attempts, it finally worked. Gacy called and came in around noon. He had no problem telling the same story, as well as filling out the witness report; but he did seem agitated after he refused a lie detector test. While that was going on, Kozenczak was gathering his warrant, and on his way back to get Gacy’s keys. At 5 p.m. Kozenczak rushed in to find Gacy and asked for his keys. Gacy was terrified and filled with anger. He fought and argued before he was forced to give up his keys. As Kozenczak put it, “I put the key in the door and I felt like I was stepping into the unknown.”6 They searched the house and found a crawl space that was creepy, but nothing seriously incriminating; but they did take many things as evidence. They took clothes, papers, towels, shoes, etc. It was not until the third warrant was issued that Detective Kozenczak decided to crawl into the crawl space. That’s when everything changed in the blink of an eye. When Detective Kozenczak crawled into the muddy crawl space, he was face to face with not one or two, but three bodies. He encountered the three bodies in the first ten minutes he had spent in the crawl space. A call was made, and as soon as the news was told to Gacy about the findings, he admitted to the murders with no hesitation. Once the crime scene was investigated and dug up, and everything was done, the Medical Examiner was called in, and over the course of a few weeks or so, twenty-four more bodies were discovered in the ground beneath Gacy’s crawl space. As reported by Detective Kozenczak, “There was plastic over their heads and most of them were partially clothed. They had been strangled and were in various stages of decomposition. There were skeletons everywhere.”7 But that wasn’t the end of finding bodies. The serial killer admitted that there was not enough room left for his last six victims. With no room left for the bodies, Gacy had turned to the river, dumping his last victim Robert Piest into the Des Plaines river. The river was near the Chicago Airport. Gacy admited to dumping the body in the winter of 1978, although they found his body in late spring of 1979. Robert’s body had froze, and was conserved in ice until it thawed out late spring.
John wayne Gacy Crawl Space | Courtesy of Google Images
Justice was finally served when Gacy was arrested and found guilty after a long and devastating trial in March 13, 1980. He received multiple sentences. “The jury quickly returned a verdict of guilty on thirty-three counts of murder, twelve carrying a death sentence, and two charges of sexual assault.” The jury did the right thing by putting a heartless monster like Gacy away. Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994, in the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois. Gacy was pronounced dead at 12:58 a.m.8 The ending somehow did not seem to lift the weight off the shoulders of Detective Joseph R. Kozenczak, as he stated “I thought that I would feel that it was all resolved then. But it wasn’t. It was just hard to live with.”9 Someone will never understand what it was like to be in the chase, but we know how hard and personal it was for Detective Joseph R. Kozenczak. After the chase was done and finally put to rest, Kozenczak retired and went on to write his own book, A Chicago Killer, which was a great insight into what the Gacy Case was like. Unfortunately Joseph R. Kozenczak passed away Wednesday May 13, 2015. He had served on the Des Plaines Police team as Chief Detective for 27 years.10 Detective Joseph R. Kozenczak’s passion, strength, and patience will live on longer than we can imagine. He brought justice to 33+ families and their relatives.
  1. Joseph R. Kozenczak and Karen M. Kozencz, The Chicago Killer: The Hunt For John Wayne Gacy (Xlibris, Corp., 2011), 23. ↵
  2. Joseph R. Kozenczak and Karen M. Kozencz, The Chicago Killer: The Hunt For John Wayne Gacy (Xlibris, Corp., 2011), 24. ↵
  3. Joseph R. Kozenczak and Karen M. Kozencz, The Chicago Killer: The Hunt For John Wayne Gacy (Xlibris, Corp., 2011), 25. ↵
  4.  Joseph R. Kozenczak and Karen M. Kozencz, The Chicago Killer: The Hunt For John Wayne Gacy (Xlibris, Corp., 2011), 28. ↵
  5. Joseph R. Kozenczak and Karen M. Kozencz, The Chicago Killer: The Hunt For John Wayne Gacy (Xlibris, Corp., 2011), 37. ↵
  6. Joseph R. Kozenczak and Karen M. Kozencz, The Chicago Killer: The Hunt For John Wayne Gacy (Xlibris, Corp., 2011), 58. ↵
  7. Ginnie Teo, “Sleuth Recalls Viciousness of Killer,” The Straits Times (Singapore, August 1997). ↵
  8. Debbie Howlett and Sandra Sanchez, “John Wayne Gacy Executed/ Fatal Injection Ends Saga Of Serial Killer,” USA Today, (May 1994): 3. ↵
  9. Ginnie Teo, “Sleuth Recalls Viciousness of Killer,” The Straits Times (Singapore, August 1997). ↵
  10. N. Sameer Yacoub, “Detective who led John Wayne Gacy Investigation Dies,” US News Online, May 15, 2015. ↵

Tags from the story

John Wayne Gacy

Joseph Kozenczak

Serial Killers

Recent Comments

Gabriela Ochoa

Not knowing of Gacy before reading this I feel that it did a really good job of telling the story of what he did to all of those people. The detective was obviously really good at his job as he found him fast and was able to the pieces together. I’m glad that they were able to find the truth and help the victims families gain justice for them.

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07/09/2018

10:53 am

Martina Rodriguez

I find the initial missing person’s report interesting as well. The routine of the mother and son seems odd to me, but at least it led to the report filed so quickly. Time is of the essence for missing persons cases. I was surprised that Gacy didn’t want to take the lie detector test. I would have thought he would have had no problems lying or in the very least not mind getting caught because of the attention it would bring. My biggest question is why wasn’t the crawl space checked with that initial warrant.

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14/09/2018

10:53 am

Raymond Munoz

This is so crazy, because I happened to do a report on John Gacy’s case in my senior year of high school. Now, this article is amazingly written and differs in the only fact that my report from high school was more about John Gacy, but my stomach still gets sick from hearing and reading about this story in any context. It’s just so horrifying to think about how these kind of people exist, or in John Gacy’s case, created in short instances. My sympathies and prayers will forever go out to any and all victims, including their families, of a serial killer and/or sexual offender.

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16/09/2018

10:53 am

Adam Portillo

John Wayne Gacy is without a doubt one of the most notorious serial killers the United States has ever seen. Sometimes I feel that in a way the media glorifies serial killers which I feel is the case with John Wayne Gary. Deep down he was a sick monster and he even lived a pretty normal life while committing all these heinous acts. I feel that this article did a tremendous job with all the details going on in the John Wayne Gacy Investigation.

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23/09/2018

10:53 am

Roman Olivera

The name, John Wayne Gacy, goes down as a name that is synonymous with the term serial killer. The detective going from searching for one young man to finding three bodies in a crawl that ended up to 33 plus murders. What a turn of events. Just to see the photo of this guy dressed up as a clown at children’s parties gives me the chills. That was one clown that kids needed to fear. What a sick individual to kidnap and sexually assault these young men, and then murder them. I also believe he was married and had children of his own. Could you imagine being the people that were closest to this monster and have no idea what he was doing until he was caught. Then after he was caught, just like it was nothing admitted to more murders. Psychopath is an understatement when referring to John Wayne Gacy.

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23/09/2018

10:53 am

Jasmine Rocha

This article was well written that it helps the reader understand the horros of the murders of not only about 33 and more people but also the three bodies found in a crawl. John Wayne not only killed but he first kidnaps and sexually assaulted his victims. They way he kidnap them was by dressing up as a clown with a creepy detail. He did all of that knowing he himself had a wife and children of his own which made everything scarier and made him more than a monster and more than a psychopath.

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07/10/2018

10:53 am

Sabrina Hsu

If it wasn’t for Detective Kozenczak and him never giving up on this case, John Wayne Gacy would have gotten away with all of those murders. I was surprised that he cooperated with the police and didn’t run after they confronted him the first time. It shows how confident he was that he wouldn’t get caught. I’m really glad they were able to finally convict him for what he did and stop him from killing any more innocent people.

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28/10/2018

10:53 am

Tyanne Pearcy

I have never heard of John Wayne Gacy until this article and it did a great job of creating a sort of suspense in his investigation. It is crazy that he would dress up as a clown at kids birthday parties and behind the scenes be associated with sexually assaulting and murdering little boys. How nonchalant he was about his crimes was the most chilling part of the whole investigation. I commend Detective Kozenczak for digging deeper and giving families justice for their children.

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28/10/2018

10:53 am

Chelsea Alvarez

I had heard of John Gacy before, but I was unaware of many of the details stated throughout this article. It’s so crazy to find out that Gacy had multiple bodies in the crawl space of his home yet was so calm and collected when law enforcement officers began to interrogate him. He was certain that he would not get caught. Detective Kozenczak’s persistence in solving this case is admirable, because he knew that something was off about Gacy. I really enjoyed reading this article.

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10/02/2019

10:53 am

Leeza Cordova

Detective Joseph is very brave and must have to deal with alot knowing that he found those bodies. Just crawling through that tiny space and finding TWO bodies right at first would make me freak out, and then to find out that there were multiple bodies under the house that no one was aware of must be a bit traumitizing. It is crazy to think that all those bodies may have never been found if they would have not taken the case seriously.

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17/02/2019

10:53 am

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