StMU Research Scholars

Featuring Scholarly Research, Writing, and Media at St. Mary’s University

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

Raymond Davila

This article was interesting to read and very informative. It was very detailed like in the beginning where the author writes exactly how Chief Detective Joseph Kozenczak morning went when he first started his case and how he gave good details about the bodies found in crawl space of Gacy’s house. I also found how the flow of the story made it feel as if the reader was actually working on the case side by side with detective Kozenczak.

reply

04/02/2018

10:53 am

Robert Flores

John Gracy is one of the most scariest killer I have ever heard of. I read his story before and one thing this article failed to talk about, although their were pictures, was that John was a clown who would lure some of his victims as his alter ego, kidnap them, and do explicit things with his male victims. This man was like the real life “IT” which is terrifying.

reply

04/02/2018

10:53 am

Maria Esquivel

I don’t know what I was expecting about the disappearance of Robert but it definitely wasn’t a clown killing over 30 people and keeping the remains in his home. I was shocked to read that. I now get why some people can be afraid of clowns; they seem nice and sweet and then you could get killed by one. This article had me intrigued from start to finish, it provided great information and images.

reply

10/02/2018

10:53 am

Caroline Bush

Creepy article about a dangerous and disturbed man. I had heard about John Wayne Gracy before and still just reading about him still gives me the chills. Its so sad that those poor victims had to lose their life to such a disturbed man. I believe that Gracy got what he deserved but it is a shame that his poor vitims had their life cut short because of that psychopath.

reply

10/02/2018

10:53 am

Tyler Thompson

The author did an amazing job introducing the crime, and listing out a descriptive reason of why things seemed to be wrong for the detective, and the things that he did in order to solve the unfortunate mystery. Gracy was rightfully put away for the horrible crime that he committed.

reply

11/02/2018

10:53 am

Didier Cadena

This is a great article on the case of Gacy. I have heard of the story before, so it was refreshing to see it written so well. I find the story of John Wayne Gacy both interesting and disturbing, especially with the whole clown getup that he had. The article does a great job of giving a great description of the case and really catches your attention with its introduction.

reply

11/02/2018

10:53 am

Julio Morales

I really don’t understand why John Wayne Gacy hid the bodies under his own house. Reading this article makes me believe that he wanted to get caught due to the carelessness. Also how did his neighbors not see him smuggle more than 20 bodies into his house? I remember seeing a movie a couple years ago about john Wayne Gacy, but this article had better details and gave me a better understanding.

reply

12/02/2018

10:53 am

Hannah Wilson

I had never heard of John Wayne Gacy before I read this article. I enjoyed it and the story was disturbing but interesting. I am thankful that there are police officers and detectives out there who work so hard to help people. It has to be hard to witness these kind of horrors first hand even if you bring closure to hurting families.

reply

17/02/2018

10:53 am

Austin Pena

Interesting article about Gacy. I’ve read about him in the past, but this article does a great job of telling the story once more. It is kind of hard to imagine what the officers and victims families went through, and for Gacy it seems like he got to carless when disposing of the bodies unless he was waiting for detectives to figure him out.

reply

18/02/2018

10:53 am

Kailan Pena

I’ve seen a movie about John Wayne Gacy and it portrayed the events that you’ve described in this article well enough, yet I still feel this article is better in all honesty. I had no idea that one missing persons report triggered getting the ball rolling on catching Gacy. Along with describing how Gacy was caught, you described who caught him well and characterized him well as the protagonist of the story. Great job on a great article!

reply

18/02/2018

10:53 am

1 2 3 4 5 6

Leave a Reply