Dogmatic

New Criminologist Library Archivist Joshua Brown, is currently working on procuring some absolutely astounding material on the late John Wayne Gacy. Josh’s latest files will include the unedited police video of what has been dubbed “The Summerdale Dig” - which is original footage shot by investigators in late December 1978, of the excavation and recovery of the bodies of the victims of the Chicago-based sexual sadist.

As twenty-nine bodies of young men and boys, all brutally, raped, tortured and eventually slain by the portly building contractor, were unearthed from beneath his garage, a barbecue pit in his back garden, and the crawl-space beneath is ranch-style home in Norwood Park, Des Plaines, the media watched in horror.

The crawl-space, where 27 of the bodies were discovered in shallow graves, some still with a noose around their neck or materials crammed into their throats and rectums, is one of the most frightening personal graveyards, kept by a serial killer, in the annals of criminal history.

Although Gacy would ultimately be charged and convicted of thirty-three murders - the final four victims were dumped, out of necessity as the man’s house was already full to capacity with decomposing corpses, in the Des Plaines river in Illinois - it was the idea of this monster being a pillar of his community, who dressed as a clown to entertain sick children, was active in politics and was a successful businessman, that could not be comprehended. How could someone so outwardly gregarious and even respectable, all the while be systematically eliminating and burying the bodies of violated young men under his house?

Shockwaves ripped not only through this man’s community, but the world at large, as people shook their heads in disbelief, wondering how he could have been killing, so prolifically for so many years, and getting away with it.

Christopher Berry-Dee makes some attempt to unravel the Gacy story in his excellent paper on the case, which will be included with this fascinating criminal case file.