John Wayne Gacy Research Paper

Possibly one of the most horrifying mass murderers in America, John Wayne Gacy, otherwise known as the “Killer Clown” was responsible for the deaths of 33 young men, along with many other crimes, including rape and sexual assault.
Gacy, born in Chicago on March 17, 1942, had a very difficult childhood. Dysfunctional would be a mild way of putting his home life. Unable to participate with other children at school due to a congenital heart disease, he was very lonely, and gained no comfort at home. Gacy’s father would beat the children and their mother with a razor strap anytime they “misbehaved”, and Gacy soon developed an identity crisis. He was constantly reminded of the disappointment he was to his father, and started to doubt his own manhood.
Gacy graduated from
(It was later told that Gacy would sometime dress in his clown costume he used to entertain children at parties when killing the young men, thus the nickname
“The Killer Clown”.)
What leads a person to commit such horrible acts? What could possibly be so terrible that it drives a person to murder? Gacy’s childhood was not a pleasant one. Beaten viciously at home, and isolated at school, struggling with the inner turmoil of discovering his sexuality, Gacy’s life was a lonely one. Statistics show serial killers often grow up in dysfunctional homes, with traumatic and damaging memories. Does this mean that every abused or mistreated child will grow up to be a killer? Absolutely not, all it takes is the right mix of elements in a person to push them toward killing. Gacy was lonely, misunderstood, mistreated, depressed, and utterly confused about his own desires. His inability to find masculinity in himself due to the abuse and disappointment from his father, led Gacy to seek it from others, in (Gacy’s mind) the ultimate show of power over another person, taking their life. Children need to grow up in a stable environment to lower the risk of them becoming