How did John Wayne Gacy die?

JOHN Wayne Gacy terrorized the Chicago, Illinois, area from 1972 to 1978 after he went on a killing spree.

Eventually, Gacy was caught and put behind bars, which is where he later died.

Getty – ContributorJohn Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer[/caption]

Who was John Wayne Gacy?

Born March 17, 1942, Gacy was known as an American serial killer and sex offender.

From 1972 to 1978, he assaulted and murdered at least 33 young men and boys and buried them in his backyard and near the Des Plaines River.

According to The New Yorker, Gacy paid a hundred and fifty boys for sex but only killed the ones who raised their prices or the ones he “thought might tell his neighbors how he obtained his sexual satisfaction.”

Prior to his killing spree, Gacy was reportedly sentenced to 10 years at the Iowa State Reformatory for Men at Anamosa after he pleaded guilty to sodomy but was paroled after 18 months for good behavior, The New Yorker notes.

Over the years, his criminal career has been the subject of multiple documentaries and is now the subject of a new Netflix three-part documentary series titled, Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes.

How did John Wayne Gacy die?

On December 22, 1978, Gacy confessed to killing over two dozen people.

Two years later, he was then convicted of the 33 sex-related murders and sentenced to death, according to History.com.

Despite being sentenced to death in 1980, he did not receive the lethal injection until 1994, after he exhausted all his appeals.

He died at the Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois, on May 10, 1994.

GettyJohn Wayne Gacy died by lethal injection[/caption]

Why was he known as the killer clown?

Nowadays, Gacy is most famously referred to as the “Killer Clown.”

While he worked in construction, he regularly performed at children’s hospitals and charitable events as Pogo the Clown and Patches the Clown.

History.com also notes that while on Death Row, he made paintings of “clowns and other figures that sold for thousands of dollars.”