Targeting kids especially when it comes into sexual matter, it has always being seen as the worst possible act. From all criminals, child molesters are detested and everyone despises them, even murderers are more welcome in prison than them. John Wayne Gacy was one of those men that did everything; tortured, raped, and killed.
Numerous sociologists and criminologists have dedicated. Gacy’s early life was a very complicated one, he was a physically and verbally abused by his father, he was diagnosed with a heart condition, he had many physical features that made him a laughing target for all the kids at school, and he was molested by a family friend (Montaldo, 2018).
Gacy was always looking for approval, especially his father’s even if he was an alcoholic and a domestic abuser, he craved positive attention so he tried to do anything he could to attract it. This is one of the very interesting factors and a possible influence on his future actions as Pogo the Clown.
It was not until he started working at a mortuary where he also spent his nights, that he had his first ‘incident’ with the corpse of a teenage boy, he did not had sexual intercourse but he got sexually aroused by the dead boy. After that encounter, he tried to forget about it and move on with his life, and for a moment he did.
He got married, had a good job and he had a few promotions and he was finally receiving some kind of approval from his father. Gacy was working around many young males which was awaking his sickly desires.
He knew it was wrong but either way his lust was stronger and he found a way to attract young boys to his basement where he would drug them so he could have sex with them.
During his ‘working’ period of time, Gacy was caught several times, and accused for sexual harassment, oral sodomy, and sexual assault (Jenkins, 2018).
Even with the accusations he never confessed committing the crimes, he firmly believed he would never get caught, he believed he was over everyone else- which is a common trait between the serial killers, to simply be superior and narcissistic (Welch, 2011).
Usually, someone that becomes a rapist has a background with previous sexual related incidents that happened to them, which is definitely a factor that influences the way a person acts.
With Gacy for example, he was molested at an early age and he never said anything about it to his parents for the fear of his father blaming everything on him.
As it was mentioned before Gacy was craving for approval and attention, this was a very big influence to become Pogo the Clown, which got the approval and attention of what he most the desired; young boys.
He used everything he had to his advantage to get what he wanted, he was never taught what was wrong and what was right, and he hid the corpses inside his house and fooled the neighbors and the police with the rotting smell of the dead bodies.
Adding all the factors that influenced his actions were: his childhood, his parental figure, being molested at an early age, having heart, conditions, and maybe even the beatings his father gave him might have been a complement to his behavior.
But even with all those influences, he still had the lack of empathy, the narcissism, the apparent charming guy that had two faces, the violence, and premeditated plans. These are the common traits that a serial killer has to be able to commit their crimes. These were the real elements that made him the monster that he was.
Rush is something that humans crave, and people try to find it and create it to produce the adrenaline that is the reason why people love roller-coasters, watching horror movies, bungee-jumping, drive over the speed limit, even just talking to someone very special can cause that pleasure and thrill.
In this case, killing is what gave that rush and adrenaline to Gacy- he got what many people crave which is lust and excitement, to the price of dying with the lethal injection after killing, torturing, and raping thirty-three boys with any remorse.
