John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster: Defending a Monster: The True Story of the Lawyer Who Defended One of the Most Evil Serial Killers in History

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The book initially attempts to grab readers by telling an imagined version of the murder of Gacy's final victim. I was interested in the case and tried to force myself through this book, but I had to give before I was even 60% through. The retelling of the murders committed by John Wayne Gacy is both compelling and revolting at the same time. It is not idle or morbid curiosity that interests, but more of a need to understand HOW this could happen. How could so many people disappear without being reported? How could so many murders occur without obvious detection? How was he able to repeat the process over and over again? And how could someone do this and NOT be insane? Bettiker recalls being given the responsibility of going over an endless number of missing persons reports from agencies across the state.

Gacy makes his debut in episode 10 of Monster, where he is seen pulling up in a van with a young man. He takes the young man into his house, and they discuss a job opportunity for the boy in Gacy’s construction company. Gacy makes them both drinks, slipping some drugs into the drink he serves the young man. The two talk for a bit until the drugs begin to take effect, and then Gacy binds the boy’s hands. He tries to escape, but Gacy overpowers him. Dressed as a clown, Gacy drowns the young man in his bathtub. This gives us a little insight into who John Wayne Gacy is and allows us to see the parallels between Gacy and Dahmer. I think he was being absolutely self-destructive and in the good side of him — the very limited good side of him that was left — clearly wanted to be caught,” Amirante said. “He was sabotaging himself.” Despite not graduating from high school, Gacy attended and graduated from the Northwestern Business College in Chicago, then worked as a salesman and manager at a shoe company. In 1964, he met and became engaged to Marlynn Myers, whose father owned three KFC restaurants in Waterloo, Iowa. Gacy relocated there to manage the restaurants, and he and Myers had two children together, according to Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer by Tim Cahill and Russ Ewing. A 1992 television movie titled To Catch a Killer explored the efforts to find out what happened to the missing teenage boys who were later discovered to be among Gacy’s victims. The movie starred Brian Dennehy, Michael Riley, and Margot Kidder, and Dennehy, who played Gacy, was nominated for an Emmy award. According to Dennehy, Gacy wrote a letter to him from prison, protesting his portrayal in the film and proclaiming his innocence.Amirante, a former assistant public defender who represented Gacy as his first private client, agreed that the secret to Gacy’s success lay largely in his unctuous charm developed over years as the son of a harsh, verbally abusive father and later refined as a successful shoe salesman. On December 11, 1978, 15-year-old Robert Piest went missing after telling his mother he was going to meet Gacy to discuss a potential construction job. Piest’s family filed a missing person report with the police, which led to a search of Gacy’s house in Norwood Park. Authorities discovered several suspicious items there, including police badges, a pistol, hypodermic needles, pornographic films, and items that they later learned belonged to some of Gacy’s victims. Sam, could you do me a favor?" Thus begins a story that has now become part of America’s true crime hall of fame. It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga—the story of a young lawyer fresh from the Public Defender’s Office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation’s history.

Sam Amirante had just opened his first law practice when he got a phone call from his friend John Wayne Gacy, a well-known and well-liked community figure. Gacy was upset about what he called “police harassment” and asked Amirante for help. With the police following his every move in connection with the disappearance of a local teenager, Gacy eventually gave a drunken, dramatic, early morning confession—to his new lawyer. Gacy was eventually charged with murder and Amirante suddenly became the defense attorney for one of American’s most disturbing serial killers. It was his first case. Some of his arguments haven't aged well. He takes a somewhat sympathetic attitude towards Gacy's homosexuality and the pressures that forced him to suppress and deny his urges, but you can tell that, at least at the time that Gacy was tried, in 1980, his attitude was a sort of benign contempt. (A final chapter in which he praises the advances that have been made in society's acceptance of homosexuality seemed a little bit of a post-insert.) Likewise, one of the witnesses at Gacy's trial was a transwoman, and Amirante's comments about that person were, well, typical of attitudes towards trans people in 1980. By 1978, Gacy’s crawl space had no more space for bodies, according to Killer Clown, and he started to dispose of his victims in the Des Plaines River from a bridge off Interstate 55. John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17, 1942, in Chicago to John Stanley Gacy and Marion Elaine Robison. His father, an auto repair machinist and World War I veteran, struggled with alcoholism and beat John and his two sisters with a razor strap if they were perceived to have misbehaved. John’s father frequently belittled him, calling him stupid and comparing him disparagingly to his sisters, according to Johnny and Me: The True Story of John Wayne Gacy by Barry E. Boschelli. John Wayne Gacy covers his face as he is led to a courtroom on December 22, 1978. Bettmann // Getty ImagesBut gone are the lines of gawking bystanders, desperate families of missing young men and carloads of curiosity-seekers who choked the streets in the days before that long-ago Christmas, trying to catch a glimpse of the murder house. Sadly what could have been an engrossing true crime book turned out to be a below average attempt on the part of the author. I was immediately annoyed with the insertion of what Gacy's last victim was thinking minutes before he was murdered... really? How did the author come up with the thoughts of the poor victim? I thought this was a true crime book, not historical fiction. I was also put off by the amount of bleeding heart preaching done on the part of the author (Gacy's attorney). What more can be expected from a Chicago trial lawyer? Though there was some new light shed in this book, the overall performance left much to be desired. The cops started digging up the bodies, and Amirante realized he was now defending one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. He’s been able to identify two Gacy victims, William George Bundy and Minnesota native Jimmy Haakenson, and clear four suspected victims who died at the hands of other killers or of other causes. Six unidentified victims remain.