WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT
John Wayne Gacy once demonstrated his infamous 'rope trick' in chilling footage captured after his arrest.
The serial killer and sex offender raped, tortured and murdered at least 33 young men and boys. He became known as the ‘Killer Clown’ because he used to perform at children’s hospitals and charitable events as a character named ‘Pogo the Clown’.
Advert
In 1992, Gacy was interviewed by CBS 2’s Walter Jacobson during which he showed the knot 'trick' which he confessed was one of his preferred killing methods.
The technique would see Gacy strangle his victims with a tourniquet — when a ligature like a rope is used to stop or limit the flow of blood in a victim's body — he’d then watch as his they died slowly.
Gacy explained that he would always carry a rosary around in his pocket. When asked by investigators what kind of knot he would use, Gacy replied he would use a tourniquet which he learned from Boy Scouts.
After attempting and failing to show an example of the tourniquet on his own hand, the serial killer asked Jacobson to put his hand out to use him instead.
The journalist put his arm out for Gacy to use for his sinister demonstration.
Advert
“That’s the only knot I ever learned,” the murder adds as he unties the tourniquet and pen from Jacobson’s forearm.
Gacy typically murdered his victims by placing a rope tourniquet around their neck before progressively tightening the rope with a hammer handle.
Sometimes the victim would convulse ‘for an hour or two’ before dying., he added
After death, Gacy typically stored the victims’ bodies under his bed for up to 24 hours before burying them in the crawl space of his home where he’d periodically use quicklime to hasten the decomposition of their bodies.
Advert
Some victims' bodies were taken to his garage and embalmed before they were buried.
Gacy buried 26 victims in the crawl space and three other victims were buried elsewhere on his property. Another four victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River in Illinois.
The Chicago native would lure victims to his dance-style home in the village of Norridge in suburban Chicago on the pretext of demonstrating a magic trick.
Advert
Once there, he would rape and torture his victims before killing them.
His crimes were the subject of a Netflix documentary, Conversations With A Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes.
The killer was eventually caught and sentenced for his crimes — which he showed no remorse for — in 1980 and would go on to spend 14 years on death row.
Gacy was executed aged 52 by lethal injection at the Stateville Correctional Center, Crest Hill, Illinois, on 10 May 1994.
Topics: True crime