The Real Serial Killer Who Inspired Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy

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The new Peacock documentary, *Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy*, explores the horrific crimes of John Wayne Gacy, who was executed in 1994 after being convicted of killing 33 young men and boys during the 1970s. Gacy buried many of his victims beneath his home near Chicago. At the time of his conviction in 1980, TIME magazine reported he had been found guilty of murdering more people than anyone else in American history.

The show features Michael Chernus as John Wayne Gacy and is based on the 2021 NBC News documentary *John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise* (available on Peacock). A key element of the series is a rare 1992 prison interview with Gacy, conducted by former FBI profiler Robert Ressler.

Here’s how the show is inspired by Gacy’s real comments and crimes.

How John Wayne Gacy got caught

The drama opens with a mother frantically searching for her son, Rob Piest, at the pharmacy where he worked. He’d left to discuss a possible job with a builder named Gacy, but never returned home.

Piest was a genuine individual, and the investigation into his disappearance in December 1978 quickly led police to John Wayne Gacy, who immediately admitted his guilt. As TIME magazine reported in 1980, here’s what happened:

During police questioning about the missing teenager Robert Piest, John Wayne Gacy confessed to a seven-year history of murder. He admitted to luring boys and young men, sexually assaulting them, and then killing them by strangulation. Investigators found the remains of 26 victims in a crawl space under Gacy’s house – 26 bodies were in the crawlspace, one under the dining room floor, and two were buried in the yard. The body of Robert Piest, along with three others, was discovered in the Des Plaines River.

During the investigation, police were overwhelmed by the stench of decaying bodies they found in Gacy’s basement. He then took them to a bridge, telling them he had disposed of victims in the river.

As a true crime buff, one of the most chilling moments in the Gacy series for me was the exchange between him and his lawyer. He wonders why more of the guys who worked for him aren’t speaking up in his defense, and the lawyer just bluntly tells him, “I can’t exactly call your employees to testify when you’ve… well, you’ve killed most of them.” It’s a stark, horrifying realization of just how much power Gacy held and how deeply his crimes went.

John Wayne Gacy’s sexuality

The show portrays Gacy as bisexual, which aligns with how he described himself in a 1992 interview. In that interview, he strongly insisted he was not gay.

He confessed to being attracted to young men and boys, and even admitted to holding and embracing the body of a young man while briefly working at a Las Vegas mortuary in 1962. During a 1992 conversation, he stated he wasn’t homophobic, identifying as a liberal, and clarified that while he had sexual encounters with men, he considered himself bisexual and primarily attracted to women, pointing to his multiple marriages and children as evidence.

John Wayne Gacy’s first wife, Marlynn Myers, divorced him while he was in prison for 18 months. He had pleaded guilty to a sexual offense in 1968 after being accused of assaulting a young boy, though he maintained any contact was consensual. After his release, Gacy moved to the Chicago area, started a construction business, and remarried to Carole Lofgren. Despite their divorce in 1976, Lofgren described him as a “warm and gentle” partner during his trial in 1980.

Clowning around

The first episode of the show reveals Gacy’s passion for clowning. He used his personal life and clown persona as a way to push back against the strict rules he grew up with and his conservative father.

He enjoyed performing in parades, cheering up patients at hospitals, and entertaining people by making balloon animals. He once described applying his clown makeup as being just as soothing as having a drink.

The dialogue his character delivers on the show is taken directly from a 1992 interview, where he explained that performing as a clown helped him feel calm and at ease. He described it as a way to reconnect with his inner child, allowing him to be carefree and silly.

Throughout the series, just as in his interview, Gacy openly admits he believed a clown costume gave him license to flirt inappropriately and even touch women without their permission. The show accurately portrays his disturbing claim that “Clowns can get away with murder.”

A botched execution

The show concludes with the families of the victims learning that Gacy has been put to death, though the actual execution isn’t shown on screen.

John Wayne Gacy’s last meal before his execution on May 10, 1994, consisted of fried chicken, fried shrimp, french fries, and strawberries. The execution itself lasted much longer than the planned five minutes – it took 18 minutes because a blockage formed in the tube delivering the lethal injection. This caused a delay in both rendering him unconscious and stopping his breathing.

Since 1976, there have been 237 executions, and 18 of them didn’t go as planned, including the execution of John Wayne Gacy. As TIME magazine noted at the time, while Gacy was dead, the way the execution was carried out raised questions about whether the act itself was inhumane.

During a 1992 interview, he strongly criticized news organizations that had labeled him a monster. He explained that the media was actively seeking someone to villainize, and they had portrayed him as a “homosexual serial killer” who hunted and killed young boys. He later stated that he felt like the 34th victim in the narrative.

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2025-10-16 22:06