Bettmann // Getty Images He Began Assaulting Underage Boys in 1967Īfter the mortuary gig, John joined the Springfield, Illinois Jaycees (also known as the Junior Chamber-it’s basically a leadership training/civics organization), where he quickly rose through the ranks. John Wayne Gacy covering his face as he enters a courtroom in 1978. So, yeah, you could say that’s where things, uh, took a turn. Because John was broke, his bosses let him sleep on a cot behind the embalming room-and he later confessed that one night, he slept in a coffin with a deceased teenage boy and spent the night caressing the body.

Unsurprisingly, John’s dad was critical of his political involvement, and so he soon got a job working as a mortuary attendant instead. John’s political career kicked off in 1960 when he began working as an assistant precinct captain for a Democratic Party candidate at the age of 18. My dad drank a lot, and when he drank a lot, he was abusive to my mother and to me…but I never swung at my dad, because I loved him for what he stood for.” Things Got Weird After He Worked for a Mortuary As he explained during a 1992 interview with CBS, “My dad was domineering. When a friend of John’s dad began regularly molesting John, he reportedly didn’t even tell his dad for fear he would be blamed. John also suffered a mysterious heart condition that kept him out of school much of the time (although apparently, his dad thought it was all an act to gain sympathy). YouTube Icon YouTube Icon John Had a Troubled Childhoodįrom a young age, John was abused by his father, a WWI veteran and alcoholic who often ridiculed and beat his son.

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