On this day, Dec. 22, in 1978, serial killer John Wayne Gacy confessed to killing more than two dozen young boys and men and burying their bodies under his Chicago-area home. Gacy was dubbed the “Killer Clown” because he had dressed up as a clown at fundraisers, parades and parties.
After Gacy confessed, authorities uncovered 29 corpses that he had buried on his property. A jury convicted him in 1980 of 33 murders that were committed between 1972 and 1978.
Gacy was sentenced to death and died by lethal injection in May 1994 at the Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet, Ill.
Emily Babay
