When we talk about the "Killer Clown," the focus usually shifts immediately to the makeup, the greasepaint, and the crawl space. It's a grisly habit of true crime fans. We obsess over the monster. But the victims of John Wayne Gacy weren't just a number, and they certainly weren't the "runaways" or "troubled drifters" the 1970s media tried to claim they were. They were kids. They were construction workers, students, and sons. Honestly, the most heartbreaking part of this entire saga isn't Gacy himself; it’s how long it took for the world to actually care about the names behind the headlines.
Thirty-three. That’s the count.
Between 1972 and 1978, a predator operated in plain sight in suburban Norwood Park Township. He was a precinct captain. He hosted neighborhood cookouts. While he was flipping burgers for the local police, young men were vanishing into his ranch house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue. People didn't just disappear into thin air back then, but Gacy made it look that way because he targeted a specific vulnerability: the desire for a job.
Why the Victims of John Wayne Gacy Were Targetted
Gacy’s PDM Contractors firm was the perfect lure. He’d cruise the bus stations or the streets of Chicago, looking for young men who looked like they needed a break. He offered them $5 an hour—decent money back then—to do basic labor.
It was a trap.
John Szyc was just 19. He was a talented musician who loved his car. He disappeared in January 1977. His mistake? He knew Gacy through his work. Gacy didn't just kill strangers; he killed people who trusted him. That’s the part that really sticks in your throat. He used the "handcuff trick," a sick bit of "magic" where he’d show a victim how to get out of restraints, only to lock them tight and reveal his true nature.
The myth that these were all "street kids" is just plain wrong. Take Robert Piest. He was 15 years old. He was a high school student with a steady job at a pharmacy. He had a family waiting for him to come home for his mother's birthday. When Robert went to talk to Gacy about a construction job in December 1978, his disappearance was the catalyst that finally brought the whole house of cards down. The Des Plaines Police Department actually listened to the Piest family. If they hadn't, Gacy might have kept going for another decade.
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The Long Road to Identification
For decades, several of the bodies found in that damp crawl space remained nameless. They were just "Body Number 10" or "Body Number 28." It’s a haunting thought, isn't it? Being buried in a mass grave and losing your very identity to the man who took your life.
However, forensic technology changed everything. In 2011, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart reopened the cases of the eight unidentified victims. He asked for DNA from families who had missing sons from that era.
It worked.
William Bundy was identified in 2011. He was 19 when he vanished in 1976. His family had spent decades wondering if he had just run away to start a new life. Then there was Jimmy Haakenson. He was 16. He’d called his mother from Chicago in 1976 to say he was doing fine. He was never heard from again. It took until 2017 for DNA to prove he was one of the victims of John Wayne Gacy.
Imagine that phone call. Forty years of silence ended by a lab technician. It doesn't bring peace, but it brings the truth.
The Names We Must Remember
It’s easy to get lost in the statistics. But every name represents a life stolen.
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- Timothy McCoy: Only 16 years old. He was Gacy's first known victim in 1972. He was just passing through Chicago on a bus.
- Gregory Godzik: 17 years old. He worked for Gacy. He vanished in late 1976.
- John Butkovich: 18 years old. His father actually confronted Gacy about his son's disappearance, but the police didn't follow up.
- Francis Wayne Alexander: He was only recently identified in 2021. He was 21 or 22 when he was killed. For four decades, he was simply "Victim #5."
These weren't just "victims." They were people with hobbies, favorite songs, and messy bedrooms. They were part of the fabric of Chicago. When you look at the photos of these young men—shaggy hair, wide collars, 70s smiles—you realize how much potential Gacy snuffed out.
The sheer scale of the horror is hard to wrap your head around. Gacy didn't just kill; he buried them under his own floorboards. He lived, ate, and slept on top of a cemetery. The smell in the house was so bad that he used bags of lime to try and mask it, telling neighbors it was "moisture in the crawl space."
A Failure of the System
We have to talk about why Gacy got away with it for so long. Honestly? It was a mix of homophobia and classism. In the 70s, if a young man went missing, police often dismissed it. "He probably just ran off to California," they'd say.
Because many of the victims were young men, and because there were rumors about Gacy’s sexuality, the authorities were slow to connect the dots. They didn't want to investigate a "homosexual underworld." That negligence cost lives.
Kim Byers, a friend of Robert Piest, has spoken out about the frustration of that time. The Piest family had to fight to get the police to take Robert's disappearance seriously. If Robert hadn't been a "straight-A student" from a "good family," would the police have searched Gacy's house? It’s a uncomfortable question. But we have to ask it.
The Forensic Legacy of the Gacy Case
The recovery of the victims of John Wayne Gacy was a turning point for forensic anthropology. Robert Moticek and other experts had to painstakingly excavate the crawl space. It was a nightmare. The ground was essentially a soup of mud and bone.
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They had to use dental records, which were the gold standard back then. But dental records only work if you have a suspect to compare them to. That’s why the unidentified victims stayed unidentified for so long.
Today, we use Mitochondrial DNA. We use SNP profiling. We can find a distant cousin of a victim and trace the family tree back. This is how Francis Wayne Alexander got his name back. The DNA Doe Project and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office are still working. There are still five unidentified victims.
Five families out there might still be wondering what happened to their brother or uncle.
What We Can Do Now
History shouldn't just be about looking back and shivering. It should be about justice, even late justice. The story of the victims of John Wayne Gacy is a reminder that everyone deserves a name.
If you have a family member who went missing in the Chicago area between 1970 and 1979, the Cook County Sheriff's Office still wants to hear from you. Providing a DNA swab is a simple process. It’s not about reopening the trauma of the crime; it’s about closing the book on the mystery.
We also need to change how we talk about victims in the media. Stop calling them "drifters." Stop focusing on the "clown" persona that Gacy used to manipulate his image even after his arrest. Focus on the lives that were interrupted.
Actionable Steps for the Public:
- Support Cold Case Initiatives: Organizations like the DNA Doe Project rely on public interest and funding to identify John and Jane Does.
- Educate on Missing Persons Protocols: Modern "NamUs" (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System) databases are light-years ahead of the 1970s. Ensure that if anyone you know goes missing, a police report is filed immediately—there is no "24-hour wait" rule.
- Correct the Narrative: When discussing true crime, pivot the conversation toward the victims. Reference them by name.
- Family History: If you have an "unsolved" disappearance in your own family tree, consider uploading your DNA to GEDmatch with "law enforcement discovery" enabled. This is how these breakthroughs happen in 2026.
The 33 victims were sons, brothers, and friends. Gacy is gone, executed in 1994. But the work of restoring dignity to those he harmed continues. We owe it to the five remaining unidentified men to keep their stories alive until they, too, are brought home.