The Tribune from Seymour, Indiana • Page 3

Said a quiet, emotionally shaken Mrs. Piest: "If someone had just murdered a member of your family that you loved very much, wouldn't you want to be here in court?" "NoTknowing Is worse than" said Ken Piest, Robert's elder brother. "Your imagination can go wild on you." JIT ,1 Piest apparently, did not fit the mold of most of the victims, sources said. He was young, blond and well built Gacy's usual type but he was not a homosexual or a transient. He was conscientious student, a-cleancut kid from a close-knit family.

Investigators tailed Gacy for lOdays after Piest disappeared and finally picked him up when he was seen passing marijuana to a gas station attendant. During the 10-day surveillance, Gacy grew so despondent over investigators' dogged work he threatened to kill himself. "He was popping. Valium by. the handful and driving around telling everybody goodbye," one investigator said.

"I guess the pressure got to him." The entire Piest family now appears at every court hearing on the case, anxiously awaiting a trial expected to begin in Editors Note: John Wayne Gacy, a cordial man who donned costame and grease paint to play clown at children's parties, hat been charged with more murders than any person la American history. For the following dispatch, UjPI's Rosalind Rossi spent several months Interviewing Gacy's ex-wives, his neighbors, and the families of victims. By ROSALIND A. ROSSI CHICAGO (JJPI) John Wayne Gacy offered a sturdy handshake to hundreds of par-tygoers who swept in and out of his northwest suburban home on warm, summer evenings last year. An energetic precinct worker and successful businessman, Gacy prided himself on the lavish bashes he gave at the house on Summerdale Avenue.

His guest list often included politicians and judges. Sometimes the parties for neigborhood children. Gacy' would dress up in a self- ftofiiffriMl rlnun ctitt emaar roH I been charged with more murders than any person in American attorneys his only contact with the outside Occasionally, he plays checkers with one of several guards who maintain a 24-hour vigil or sits down for a card game with the-inmates in the jail-exercise room. He voraciously follows newspaper reports of his case. Sometimes, he gets angry about what he reads and talks to one of the guards stationed outside his door.

"I know one time he got real upset about some newspaper report and was telling one of the guards about it," said Margot Phillips, a spokeswoman for Cook County Hospital. "This was right after the 33rd 'body 'was found. But he's caused no problems no trouble at all. "But most people are just a little disgusted to handle him This man is just someone who s- you know is not your run-of-the-mill prisoner." "You wouldn't believe the hate mail we get on him," added Philip Hardiman, Cook County corrections director. During his stay at Cook County Hospital, Gacy has been shackled to his bed, to protect others and himself, -Hardiman said.

Defense attorneys called the shackles a "calculated attempt to destroy his morale." But one Cook County Hospital worker said, "Xou never know-who would want to go 'after him." A barren plot of land is an uncomfortable reminder of the "house of horrors" home of Join Wayne Gacy that once stood there. Gacy, 37, has 1 Hissed by Tribune Carrier? (Seymour City OrHy) CALL ROSS AMBULANCE 522-UCO (Also Sick Room Supplies) UNTIL 8 P.M. WEEKDAYS BETWEEN 3 4 4 P.M. SATURDAYS There will be bo delivery after these hours. If ytm have a -complaint call the offlce 8 to weekdayi, 8 to 12 Saturdays.

1 1-6 PLACE inguish every reminder of him from the face of the earth," said Sam Amirante, one of Gacy's two attorneys. Hoff says she can't sleep some nights wondering if the home she once shared with Gacy on Summerdale was the scene of the largest string of sex murders in U.S. history. "The thing that's been worrying me is now I'm wondering if any of this took place while I was living in that house," said Ms. Hoff, Gacy's second wife, who agreed to an inter-; view on the condition her maiden name be used.

The attractive, 35-year-old frosted blonde shifted restlessly from foot to foot as she stood in the doorway of a Chicago townhouse and talked hesitantly about her four-year marriage to Gacy. i She said she is tired of being badgered by reporters. "I'm just starting to forget about it. I guess I'm trying to run away from It I thought most of this was over. But I think he'll be haunting me the rest of my life." Suddenly, as if the "on" button just flashed, her hours of worry spilled out in a steady, -emotional stream, "He used to go out late at night and come back late," she "I'd hear his car go in the garage but I'd never hear him come in the house.

And I'm a light sleeper. One time I asked him what went on in that garage and he said he had wallpaper books in there that he was checking on." Ms. HoTf was married to Gacy from June 1972 to March 1976. Gacy has been indicted for a series of slayings that occurred between 1972 and late 1978. John Butkovich, 18, disappeared in August 1975 and his body later was found under Gacy's garage.

Investigators said Ms. Hoff told them Gacy had been bringing young boys into the garage late at night and then driving them home. Ms. Hoff cradled a crying infant as she traced the oddities of a marriage marked by long, lonely nights, infrequent sexual activity and angry outbursts, including several furniture-tossing inci-' dents. Her current 'husband came to the hallway to take their child from her arms.

"It always had to do with work," she said. "At 1 o'clock at night I'd be in bed and I'd hear him taking a shower so I'd think he'd be getting ready to go to bed. Then he'd come out all dressed up. I'd ask him where he was going so late and he'd say he had to meet a client. "A lot of times he'd leave at 1 o'clock in the morning and come back at 6 and shower and go straight to work.

crazy, I'd tell him. But I figured he was -old enough to know what he was doing." Although Ms. Hoff still speaks with concern and reserved affection about Gacy, she cannot help but wonder about his activities while they were living together in -their L-shaped ranch house in Norwood Park Township. Investigators slowly pieced together some of the activities that went on in Gacy's home from 1972 to December 1978. Most detectives refused to discuss the case they are under court order not to but a few who worked closely on it agreed to talk.

They said Gacy used a variety of methods to lure people to his home. Often, they said, he rounded up teen-agers with the promise of liquor and drugs which some suspect he Tapered collar known as a blatant "drag queen" and authorities suspect many other people who had sexual contact with Gacy are still around to talk about it, but won't. One, young man originally as an accomplice in the murders finally broke down after days of questioning and told authorities Gacy paid him $12 an hour for his construction work, with sex as part of his duties. The man was married and said he needed the money' for his 3-year-old child. Another acquaintance, Art Peterson, 26, said Gacy offered him for sex and $10 an hour to accompany him on business trips! Peterson said he rejected the offer.

Whether his guests were willing or unwilling, Gacy may have had the habit of keeping remembrances in his home of those who visited him, Authorities found a "little black book" filled mostly with the phone numbers of young men and "mementos" of his visitors in the house, "When he had contacts with individuals, he would keep a memento," Tone investigator said. "It was just a fetish. A guy would go to take a shower or he'd fall asleep and Gacy would take their driver'' license out of their pants. A lot of times it was driver's licenses or a piece of jewelry a class ring with some people." Authorities later discovered many of the owners of i the mementos and those listed in Gacy's phone book had disappeared. They suspect- they found at least some of those people buried beneath Gacy's crawlspace.

Martin Zielinski, 26, who worked as Gacy's photographer at parties and work sites, said he was inside that crawlspace 'once. Zielinski said one day he was visiting Gacy's home and wandered near the entrance to the crawlspace, so he went inside. "It struck me as unusual that it was very clean and orderly," Zielinski said. "The house generally was very clean and orderly and that was even cleaner than1 the rest of the house." Some investigators said the method Gacy used for disposing of bodies in his dirt crawlspace also was orderly. Perhaps it was that fetish for organization -that enabled Gacy later to draw investigators a "map of death" detailing where bodies were buried in the crawlspace.

"He hired a guy "to dig around the perimeter," an investigator said. "Then it got backfilled. So Gacy told him to dig a cross in the crawlspace. The guy said he dug and dug and one day he got-toward one mound in the center and Gacy saw him and told him to stop. At that.

Point it was difficult to find anywhere, to dig without hitting anything. "Gacy later said he was running out of room so he couldn't sendanybody in there and he" was getting too old and tired to dig himself." Sources suspect Gacy, who was putting on weight by that time and suffering from heart problems, discovered it was, easier to dump bodies in the river than to crouch in a the middle of his trunk roof so it would look like a police antenna. Gacy also haunted the gay night spots and "Bughouse Square" a small, Near North Side park frequented by homosexuals and male prostitutes, particularly after the bars Tdose. The paraphernalia for some of the activities at Gacy's home included a board later found under his bed, chains, drugs, chloroform and a ligature -r a rope attached to a stick that could be used for strangulation. "The board it was-four feet long with two holes at each side," an investigator said! "The holes were approximately 2 to 3 inches apart and at the end of the board.

And he had chains with padlocks. The chains were put through the hole and a foot would be chained to the other hole. The victim then would bend over and his hands would be handcuffed together to the board. "As far as we know, there was only one person that voluntarily used that Others may not be alive to talk about it. said he got the idea from (Elmer Wayne) Henley," the investigator said.

Henley was one of a trio suspected of sexually abusing and killing 27 teen-agers in the Houston area from 1971 to 1973. "He was very interested in the Henley case. He did a lot of research on it." Sexual torture also may have awaited some of the visitors to Gacy's home. Those few bodies that, were not decomposed oeyond mere skeletal fragments showed evidence of sexual brutality and torture, sources close to the investigation said, refusing to elaborate. "Maybe during the course of his sexual activity he killed them as the ultimate in.

sadomasochism," one investigator' said. "We just don't know." Si'pusich, also called "Snags" by his friends, said Gacy offered him some drugs one night last fall in a bar and then took him home to view his private drug collection "He lined them up on the bar, just like it was some kind of drug store." "Within an hour, Sipusich was chloroformed into oblivion. "At first I couldn't put together what was happening," said Sipusich, recalling he regained consciousness once to find Gacy on top of him. "At first I thought it was a woman. Then I saw it was him.

I screamed and pushed him away. I told him to get the hell off of me Then he brought that rag again I passed out." "You're lucky to be alive," one investigator told Sipusich when he was shown the pictures Gacy apparently took that evening, run out of He must have room in tne crawlspace," Such incidents may not have been rare. Authorities said Gacy apparently had a penchant for nude pictures about 100' shots of nude young men were found at his house. But investigators said not all who visited Gacy were unwilling sex partners. At least one of his alleged victims was CONCRETE Mixed On The Jcb.

No No Over-Run. POLLEY Building Supply, Inc. 1315 ,0 WIEN-PHJ 22-J6II SAT. for extra strength Flat knit fabric for greater comfort fliir 03 and shoulder Mams and shoulder seams crawlspace and dig shallow graves. But by disposing of bodies in rivers, the killer i also took chances someone would see him.

As his disposal techniques got "sloppier," so did his method of choosing his victims, investigators said. "He obviously was' getting sloppier in the kids he was picking up," one detective said. "Like with (Robert) Piest he was seen talking to him 'in a drug store and offered him a job." Piest, 15, was on his way to his mother's birthday celebration last Dec. when he told her he had-to see a man about a job that paid $5. an hour.

'That's the last anybody saw of him," said the youth's father, Harold Piest, 46, of suburban Des Plaines. "It was his mother's birthday and we were waiting at home with cake." Investigators refer to Piest 's disappearance as the breaking point in the Gacy case. "In a way he (Piest) was a hero," said Jane St. Germaine of Des Plaines, whose son, David, 15, was a friend of Piest. "If he hadn't died, 'maybe 30 or 40 others would have been killed." "If you sat down and had a cup of coffee with him, you'd like him," the investigator said.

"John Q. Gacy, the average was a very nice guy." "He's the nicest man you could ever want to meet," said one Cook County Circuit Court worker who stands by as Gacy is escorted under heavy guard to court hearings. "A real gentleman. You could mistake him for a businessman, or a lawyer. He always says, 'Hello, how are Gacy's trial promises to be a grisly show and already has set at least one legal precedent.

He is charged with more murders than any single person in U.S. history and defense lawyers say they have (napped put a "winnable" insanity defense. If they succeed, Gacy would be the first mass murder suspect ever found not guilty by reason of insanity. if Gacy's attorneys convince a jury Gacy is legally insane, jurors may be too frightened by the enormity of the slayings to judge him innocent To impress jurors with, the seriousness of the accusations, the prosecution is expected to present evidence in the most gruesome detail the court allows; Sources said the prosecution has compiled videotaped segments of the grisly excavation process, dozens of pictures of decomposed bodies and a few photos of sexually brutalized young men at least what little is left of them. Only the four bodies found in the river and linked to Gacy have been spared severe decomposition.

"The biggest (defense) problem is going to be convincing a jury that if Gacy is found innocent by reason of insanity he's not going to be walking the streets next, week or moving into the house next door in a month," one attorney said. "Everybody hates him. I think they hate him more than Hitler." Even Gacy's second wife expressed concern over whether Gacy would ever be a free man. "Is there a chance he could be out again on the streets?" Ms. Hoff asked.

"I know he told me something about when he was in Iowa I don't know where. He was in jail for a while and then he got out for good behavior, 'i "Is there a chance that could happen again? Just think of what the mothers of one of those boys might do to him. I don't know what I would do if it was my boy." Meanwhile, Gacy sits in a maximum security hospital room nursing a heart ailment: his home destroyed, his personal belongings scheduled to be auctioned off to Ipay mounting fees, and his and white paint on his face and make a genial fool out of himself for the kids. But last December, neighbors who had smiled as Gacy played the cordial host and "Pogo the Clown" were stern-faced and solemn. They lined up in sub-zero temperatures to watch work-erf attack Gacy's home with pickaxes and chain saws.

They whispered among themselves about suddenly mysteri-: ous neighbor as investigators carried body bags out the front door. Twenty-nine badly decomposed bodies were found on Gacy's property most in shallow, makeshift graves in a feid crawlspace, some with underwear stuffed in their' mouths. Four other bodies linked to Gacy were pulled from nearby rivers. Gacy, a stocky, pugfaced 37- saap.AH HnilHino itnnlpaittAr with graying hair, was charged with the sex slayings of 33 young men the largest number of murder charges ever filed against a single per- -son. Authorities suspect the 33 young men were part of a series of visitors lured to Gacy's home for more private atiiina haap nnt CAV finrl sometimes, death.

This summer, a vacant, barren plot of land disrupts the rows of modest homes on Summerdale Avenue. It sits as an uncomfortable reminder, of what went on in the house that once stood there. After weeks of excavation in their search for bodies, Cook County workers had demolished the once worth an estimated $80,000, i i ana Kveiea uie ianu. "They were trying to ext- CCiSDff i -THA FATIGU5 Seymour 7 V4Mf Tribune (USPS 491-540) is published dally except Sundays and holidays' for $35.50 per year by mail by the Seymour Tribune. Company, 1215 East Tipton Street, Seymour, Indiana 47274.

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The offer of a construction Job got others into Gacy's home. Sometimes, he used a black leather jacket, a badge and special red lights he on his car to portray himself as a policeman so he could pick up hitchhikers, the investigators said. Gacy even went to the trouble to put his CB antenna in i low 1 V--Y. V-V-- of 3 FOR Briefs and Tee Shirts and Athletic Shorts Vee-Neck Shirts Put on mart's 'Best' first thing in the morning for comfort all day. Superb flat knit white fabric jn a long-wearing luxury blend.

Men's S-M-L-XL Copyright 1979 by mrt CoroorMion parties, is shown in police photo after his arrest. John Wayne Gacy, who sometimes donned costume and grease paint (fleht) to play clown at childnen's.