Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 22

-f 22 Section 1 Chicago Tribune, Sunday, January 7, 1979 irbtrtrtx reeo, recoras sno acy se year ago ized but fi By John Gorman CHICAGO POLICE arrested accused killer John Gacy more than a year ago when a 19-year-old youth told them Gacy had kidnaped him at gunpoint and forced him to engage In sexual acts, but no criminal charges were filed, police records show. "I was shocked," the youth told The Tribune. "They the police would only say there was insufficient evidence. Both the cops and an assistant state's attorney said that he Gacy was a solid citizen. "I was practically pleading with them.

I even told them that he bragged to me that he had killed people and said he was going to kill me, but my pleas didn't do any good." THE YOUTH, A North Side resident who asked that his name not be used, I John Wayne Gacy they questioned Gacy he denied knowing where Butkovich had gone. GODZIK, ANOTHER Gacy employe, disappeared more than 17 months after Butkovich. Comdr. Thomas said that as far as he knows there was ho communication between the youth officers who investigated the Butkovich case and the different youth officers who investigated the Godzik case. Godzik lived in police Area 5 on the Northwest Side, while Butkovich lived in police Area 6 on the North Side.

Thomas said that since both youths were 17 years of age or older, they were not juveniles under the law and for that reason the youth division could not have forced them to return home and stay there had they been found. He said that because of this, and because younger people are more vulnerable" the youth division tends to work harder on cases involving those under 17. When police officers questioned Gacy about Godzik he told them the same thing he had told the different set of officers who questioned him about Butkovich: he had no idea where the youth could be. THOMAS conceded that youth officers made no attempt to check Gacy's arrest record in either the Butkovich or Godzik cases. Had they done so, they would have learned that Gacy was convicted of sodomy with a teenage boy in Iowa in 1968 and had been sent to prison for the offense.

"There was no reason to check his record," Thomas said. "We don't run a check on everyone we talk to in an investigation unless there is some reason. You must realize that you don't treat every missing case as a possible homicide." John Szyc vanished less than six weeks after Godzik, and officers from the same police area Area 5 investigated. They were different officers, Thomas said there was nothing to link the Szyc youth to Gacy because Szyc, unlike Godzik, never worked for Gacy. RECORDS SHOW THAT to 1977, there were 19,456 persons reported missing to the Chicago Police Department and 18,483 were located and urged to return home.

Chicago police officers insist that they do not take missing persons cases lightlyespecially the approximately 14,000 such cases that involve young people and children each year. But some said that the attempt to be thorough complicates the problem by creating mountains of paperwork. Before the initial case reports and followup reports are. completed each case of a missing person contains up to six pages. No person or unit can wade through all those reports and recognize similarities between cases, some youth officers contend.

THEY ALSO SAID that improvements could be made in the method Chicago police in different, units, districts, and areas share information. They said that sharing of information between police departments such as those in Chicago and the suburbs, is virtually nonexistent. The Gacy case finally was broken by the Des Plaines Police Department working on the case of a missing 15-year-old boy. The youth was not only a juvenile, but also went to the same high school as the son of Lt. Joseph Kozenczak, the Des Plaines policeman who headed the investigation.

Kozenczak established immediately that the missing youth had an excellent reputation. Within days, Des Plaines police traced the youth to Gacy, who had offered him a job, checked Gacy's arrest record, and discovered the conviction for sodomy. They put Gacy under surveillance and finally obtained a warrant to search his house. It was during the search that they found the bodies. their business to learn "John's" identity and discovered it was Gacy.

Tttey looked for his car and followed it, but never saw Gacy picking up youths or doing anything else illegal. Harold Thomas, commander of the youth division, said his officers saw dozens of young men going in and out of Gacy's bouse and stopped many of them for questioning, but none would say anything against Gacy. In conversations with investigators after his arrest last month, Gacy reportedly denied with vehemence that he had anything to do with the Ferris boy. The police youth division also investigated the disappearance of 4 of the 10 bodies linked to Gacy that have been identified. As more bodies are identified, youth division officers say it probably will turn out that they investigated many of those disappearances as well.

THE IDENTIFIED YOUTHS linked to Gacy whose cases have been investigated by the youth division, and the dates they disappeared, are John Butkovich, 18, of 4835 N. Kenmore Aug. 1, 1975; Gregory Godzik, 17, of 5500 N. Natoma Dec. 12, 1976; John Szyc, 19, of 4313 N.

Francisco Jan. 20, 1977; and Frank Landingin, 19, of 5217 Nov. 4, 1976. Two of the other identified youths were from the suburbs, and one a 20-year-old had not been reported missing. Four of the 10 bodies were identified Saturday.

One victim was from Cloquet, the first so far from outside the Chicago area. Marko Butkovich, John Butkovich's father, insisted that he told the police that John was last seen before he went to Gacy's home to collect some money he said Gacy owed him. The youth had worked for Gacy until a few weeks earlier when he had quit during a quarrel. Police said the family told them about Gacy only after the boy had been missing for two weeks. They said that when THE POLICE report on the North Side youth's complaint states that the decision not to prosecute Gacy was made by Jerry Latberow, an assistant state's attorney.

Latberow said be was prohibited from discussing the incident because of a judicial gag order against potential witnesses in the Gacy case, "or I would be more than willing to discuss it." The police report shows that when he was taken into custody, Gacy admitted engaging in the sexual acts described by the youth and even admitted the brutality of those acts, but denied that the youth had been an unwilling participant. In addition, Sgt Edward Flynn of the Belmont Area 6 homicide-sex investigation unit said the youth never told police that Gacy had told him he had killed anyone. Flynn also denied that any police or state's attorney's investigators told the teen that Gacy was considered "a solid citizen." Several officials said privately that in the current era of increasingly permissive attitudes toward sexual conduct it has become difficult to prosecute sex abuse cases. 1 "IT WAS A ONE-ON-ONE situation with Gacy's word against the kid's," one official said. "There were no witnesses.

Gacy wanted us to believe that the kid turned him in because he Gacy wouldn't pay blackmail, and that sort of thing happens." Three months later, in March, another North Sider, Jeff Rignall, 27, complained to police that Gacy had chloroformed him, driven him to the Gacy house, and attacked him sexually before letting him go. In this instance, Gacy was charged with battery, a misdemeanor The charge is still pending. Gacy's encounters with Chicago police in the Rignall case and the one involving the youth were not the only times his name was entered in the department's files. The police homicide and sex unit ap- I said that when he complained about Gacy, the authorities "treated me like some kid who was stoned." He admitted that three months earlier he had been arrested for possession of marijuana. "I had three joints in my pocket," he said.

Records show that the youth reported Gacy to the police on Dec. 31, 1977. Ten days less than a year later, on Dec. 21, the first of the bodies was found in the crawl space Gacy's house at 8213 I W. Summerdale In an unincorporated area south of Park Ridge.

So far, 29 bodies have been linked to Gacy, the greatest number of murder victims attributed to one person in the nation's history. Twenty-seven bodies of young males have been found buried on Gacy's property and two other bodies parently was unfamiliar with Gacy when the youth filed the complaint with them. But Gacy's name had been known to the police youth division for more than two years. There are more than 13,000 officers in the Chicago Police Department and sometimes one unit doesn't know what another is doing, a top police official said. In addition, the youth division had never been able to build a case against Gacy.

But that division tried. For more than two weeks in January, 1976, youth officers staked out Gacy's home, though it is outside Chicago, because they suspected he may have been responsible for the disappearance in 1975 of 9-year-old John Ferris, of 4627 N. Magnolia Av. IN 1975, YOUTH division members had been told by youngsters in the Uptown neighborhood where the Ferris boy lived that a man named "John" cruised the area in his car picking up boys. The youth division members made it linked to him were pulled from the Des Plaines River.

Three additional bodies are being sought in the river. After being taken into custody by suburban Des Plaines police and Cook County sheriff's police, Gacy reportedly admitted killing 32 young men and boys after having sexual relations with them. 'Never same for neighbors Continued from page one Sears Jtl emrates casual an Mfef T99c a Sears regular 4 Jk low price ai The plaid sport shirt VIlM 0 comfortable The yarn dyed plaid shirt itJ' 1 looks just right when you am fa4, I if are playing it casual. Ter- UsL.iil rific" with anything denim, fhffl ns! worn on its own or layered. wl Polyester and cotton.

5-15. Short sleeve Long sleeve who live here, became front page news around the I world two weeks ago after John Gacy, self-employed i contractor, allegedly confessed to police that he had sexually molested and then murdered more than 30 boys, burying most of them at his home at 8213 W. Summerdale Av. As bodies were unearthed 27 have been found on Gacy's property to date the headdlines grew more frfinzied, the crowds grew and the neighbors became more agitated. Now there are police barricades at each end of the street and it feels strangely quiet at night, almost as if the neighborhood has been quarantined.

"IT ALL GIVES me the creeps," confessed an elderly I woman who lives across the street from Gacy's house. "And you're constantly reminded every time you look out of the window. "We'll have this mess with us for a long time." Even the bitter cold and snow hasn't kept the gawk-ers and reporters away. The crowds have been much smaller the last few days, to be sure, but the diehards still come, many with children, just to stand watching i the house. Some have lined up their families in front of Gacy's house to take photographs, as if they were at i Disney World, neighbors say incredulously.

Some gawkers even have shown up in wheel chairs. i "You wonder what kind of people would do this," said one neighbor who refused to give his name. "All night long you hear cars stopping here." BEFORE POLICE began to carry bodies out of Gacy's bouse, this was just another quiet street in a blue- i collar community on Chicago's northwest border. Gacy was well-liked by his neighbors. In the winter, he would clear the snow from some of their driveways with his snowplow, and in the summers, many would attend his yearly outdoor bash.

The parties were huge more than 200 people and always had themes. There was a Bicentennial affair, a Southern jubilee, and an Italian Feast, recalled Jim Van Vorous, who was cohost at three of them. Gacy and he would cook for the crowd, provide beer, a band, and a hired photographer to take lots of pictures. As an extra attraction, the two hosts would dress in costume to match the theme, of course, explained Van Vorous, a business associate of Gacy. "WE DANCED AND we sang," recalled Van Vorous.

"John loved to entertain. He loved people around him i and everyone thought the world of him. It's just so hard for anybody to believe what happened." John Gacy had been part of a quiet, family-oriented neighborhood where many people have owned their homes for more than 15 years. The houses are all well-kept here, mostly bungalow style, and many still have bright Christmas lights blinking at night. This is the kind of block where people know they can count on their neighbors when things go wrong.

People have always felt safe in their homes here, and wouldn't worry about their children playing outside. 1 Until now. "I HAVEN'T BEEN able to sleep," said Sandra Pucca, who lives a few doors down Summerdale Avo-. nue from Gacy. "I dream of bodies.

I dream of Gacy." "I get scared too," added her 10-year-old son, Kelly, sliding down on the living room couch. "I'm afraid in the shower that someone will get me and I'm afraid spirits are going to come into our house." The neighbors say they are worried that no one will buy Gacy's house, and that the property values of their homes will fall. ALREADY, THEY complain, the mention of Summerdale Avenue stirs snide comments from strangers in supermarkets and banks. "It's almost like Summerdale Avenue has become a dirty word," said Mrs. Grexa.

"People say, 'How can you live in a place like We're getting all of this notoriety that we Just don't need." Many in the neighborhood sought solace In their parish, St. Eugene's Roman Catholic Church, just a few blocks away, and on Thursday more than 200 braved the cold to attend a memorial service for the slain youngsters. "THESE PEOPLE are so shocked and ashamed that this happened here," said The Rev. Frank Shaunesty, the pastor. "We Just thought there should be a Christian response to all of this.

These people need support." And many don't seem to be able to help each other. Up and down the street, its the same story: Everyone is withdrawing into the security of his home, away from the tumult. Mrs. Pucca looked at Kelly and thought for a mo .80 99 RrpilnrS7.30 Regular S8.30 20 off full fashioned nylon tops Versatile tops in two classic styles, mock or full turtle-neck. Fashion colors; 34-10.

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autatui amu i Where America shops ment. "I really don't think the neighbors will be friendly like they used to be. John Gacy was so nice to everybody. He didn't seem strange at all. "It will never be quite the same.".