names. >> you see bodies in your sleep. you see him in your sleep. it's just too much. >> it was very eerie because you knew exactly what was happening. >> nobody can explain what he did. who can explain it? >> john wayne gacy's detailed confession to a gruesome seven year killing spree was almost impossible to believe. within 24 hours, police would learn the truth for themselves. the questions on everyone's mind were how did gacy become so evil? and how did he get away with killing so many people for so long? the shocking conclusion of john wayne gacy evil secret next. i'm donnie wahlberg.

>> they paint the image that i was this monster. i don't believe in hitting, hitting children. and i don't believe in spoiling a child either i always felt if you serve other people, it'll come back to serve you i've always believed that way with generosity welcome to very scary people. >> i'm donnie wahlberg. for most of the 1970s, john wayne

gacy had everyone in chicago fooled. he was known as a model citizen and a pillar of his community. but he was living a double life, a life no one knew about. john wayne gacy had managed to become the most prolific serial killer of his time. without anyone noticing. but at the end of 1978, gacy's secret life would be revealed for all the world to see. here's part two of evil secret it was december 11th, 1976. >> my brother had planned to go out with his girlfriend and he spent the part of the evening with her and he said to her that he was going to see her the next morning. they were worried the next morning

because he didn't come in, knock on her door and say, hey, mom, i'm i'm home. my mother kept saying, there's something wrong. there's something wrong. so my mother called the police. >> this was in the 70s when a lot of teenage boys ran away. so police just didn't take their disappearances seriously. >> and they said to my mother, well, uh, what do you want us to do about it? kids run away all the time. you just got to give it time. they'll be back. >> that's why john gacy got away with it. for so long, nobody was looking for these kids but, like almost all criminals, he got stupid, got lazy, got to the point where he was just plain careless

robert piest was a great kid. >> everybody had just great things to say about him. >> he went missing after his shift at the nissan pharmacy, and gacy was the logical suspect because he was the last one known to have seen rob frehse. >> gacy drove him to his house knowing full well the owners of the drug store knew that gacy was the one who was with peace. >> that's when everything began to fall apart for. john wayne gacy, and he, of course, denied ever having left with rob. >> so police searched gacy's house and find possessions of other local boys who had gone missing. >> they've owned some property, some jewelry, driver's licenses or whatever it may be. we were pretty well set in our minds that he was guilty, and he was. at least he

was a person of interest to look, take a real good, hard look at the scariest thing about john gacy? >> the absolute scariest thing, is that he was not a scary guy at all. >> everyone that they talked to just swore up and down that gacy was like, the best guy that they ever knew just a great guy. >> he was gregarious and outgoing. he'd give you the shirt off his back kind of guy. >> john was actually rather well liked by his neighbors. he was a guy that would be out there when it snowed, plowing their sidewalks. >> this guy was so nice and he was trusted. >> he wanted to make people laugh, and he particularly wanted to help kids. >> and he became a clown. >> and he did a lot of functions for charity that involved him dressing up as the clown

that was the good side of him and then the other side of the coin was, my god, how many disappearances was he involved in? >> then one day they got their answer. after cops searched gacy's house, he calls his lawyer and says he wanted to talk about rob. he's. >> one day he called me and said, it's very, very important i talked to you. i have to tell you something. gacy sits down and he tells me the same old damba robbie piece vehemently, unequivocally denied. i took the newspaper with robbie piece. picture. i threw it in front of him and i said, look at this kid, john. look at him. he's a good kid. he's missing. he looked at the

picture. he said, you know what? this this boy, this boy is dead and i said, what do you mean? he goes, i've been a judge, jury and executioner of many, many people. even now, my hair stands up on end thinking, hearing those words. he said, i want to tell you the whole story from the beginning. it started in 1972. i was cruising around he was cruising the greyhound bus station, and he sees a kid that looks kind of on his own and he talked to him and said, you know, you look lost or something like that. >> he said he had time to kill. i said, well, if you want it. so i'm just cruising around. if you want a ride you cruise around chicago looking for young men to have sex with. >> he had just enough charm to be able to pull up to the curb,

roll the window down, and said, hey, are you looking for a job or do you want to take a ride? >> gacy took that guy to his house. they had sex after it was over. >> i think i just fell off asleep and the boy came into the bedroom. >> with a knife in his hand and i woke up and i seen him come in the room with a knife. >> well, when i fell out of bed, i knocked him off his. while i was wrestling, he took the knife i think i stabbed him in the

chest 4 or 5 times. i think after the first or second stabbing, all you could hear was the the darkening of blood in his lungs or something. >> i don't know. >> gacy. he went to the kitchen and he saw that the table had been set for two, and the boy had been making breakfast for him. that's why he had the knife in his hand. but john said, what are you going to do when a guy comes into your bedroom with a knife? after the first young man that he'd killed with a knife, there was blood all over. this obviously wasn't an efficient way to do things. >> and he said it took so long to clean up the house after he stabbed him to death. >> gacy described how from then on, he would trick his victims into putting on handcuffs.

>> while they're struggling to get out of handcuffs. he would put a rope. around their neck and turn it with a hammer handle, and they would be convulsing on his floor. didn't bother him in the least. didn't bother him talking about it. >> six hours went by with gacy spilling his guts, going through his victims one by one. >> he had such a memory he had just an exhaustive memory. the way he said he handled each victim. >> we had smoked and we were talking about sex, how he killed him, what he did to them. >> what was your initial emotional response? >> just going down the crawlspace. get rid of them yeah, but once you buried somebody that was already gone, once they were in the ground, they weren't my problem. there was no feeling i aged so much

that night. >> it was the longest night of my life. never showed any remorse. never. as if they weren't people at all. that's how he felt. he was just. it was phenomenal. >> but the cops would soon discover for themselves just how deep this went. >> they started tearing up the flooring and working in the crawlspace andy, take a seat. >> anderson, look at this. you're wet. disheveled. there's debris hitting you. we need to be ready for new year's eve. maybe you are ready. >> new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn and i can't fight this feeling anymore. >> whenever heartburn strikes, get fast. relief with tums, it's time to love food back. also, try new tums gummy bites. >> when i was younger, my calling was to play football,

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was made learning. my code was just the beginning, bringing it to life for the first time is a whole new story. dexter original sin new series now streaming on paramount+ with showtime. plan from creating memories. >> to finding the perfect gift. let us make this holiday season a little easier. right now. save up to $60 on select as battery sets. happy holidays from steel. >> this morning, police searched gacy's home. they became suspicious when 15 year old robert piest disappeared after he allegedly was last seen with gacy. they start tearing up the flooring and working that way in the crawl

space. it was probably like a lot of other crawl spaces that people have. it was just dirt and clay and the very first dig with the shovel, they struck a human bone. so it was at that time that i arrested john for murder two bodies were removed by police, who then stopped their search for the day. >> but they are emptying this house of its contents this evening so that the search for more bodies can continue tomorrow when i saw on the news that john gacy had murdered all those people, i was so overwhelmed. >> you couldn't put in words. i could not believe that a friend that i grew up with could end up doing such a terrible, terrible thing john and i grew up back in the in the early 50s of this

northwest side of chicago. we both went to the same school. when johnny and i met, we became best friends. johnny was the most incredible person you ever want to meet. john's mother was incredible. both of his sisters loved johnny very much. we had dreams and hopes like anybody would. he wanted to be the next governor. but john had a hard rock to climb. his father laid on him constantly. >> there are a lot of stories about his childhood that are supposed to somehow explain how he got to be the way he is, if anything can be pointed to, it's the relationship with his father. gacy's history as a kid started with his father looking at his newborn son and naming him john wayne. he wanted john wayne and what he

got, unfortunately, was a sickly, overweight, sort of clumsy kid who didn't have a lot of friends, played with his sisters, primarily was teased and did get beat up a few times. >> my dad was domineering in the fact he had a different set of values, but also very stern individual. >> many occasions i would be present where mr. gacy. johnny, you're so stupid and dumb. he'd say, but dad, i am smart. no you're not. you got no saw dust up in that head of yours. >> and i think that's probably where the first. hear the words that echo through john's life. dumb and stupid at times he would be very physical with john. >> my dad drank a lot. when he drank a lot? yeah. he was

abusive to my mother. and to me. >> his father, he would come home from work, drink in the basement. >> quite often. when he emerged, he was drunk. >> he would take a razor strop and. and beat him quite often because of all the abuse. >> the name calling johnny lost himself. he lost everything that he once believed in as a boy, in dreams and hopes. i saw it happen. >> that affected gacy. his psychological motivation in life was to try to please his dad when johnny was a little boy, he had another drama in his life. >> he was molested by a contractor. >> john's father knew a contractor. john was always interested in building.

>> he'd ask gacy, would you want to go out and look at a couple of work sites that i'm working on, and i'll take you to get some ice cream. he would take gacy out, and he got him to one of the sites, and what he wanted to show him was a wrestling hall. the hold involved putting gacy's face down in his crotch and holding it there. it happened a few more times. each time the wrestling hall got held a little bit longer and got a little more emphatic. >> he never told his father that the contractor had molested him. he knew he'd get whipped for it one night, johnny invited me over and i said, what is it? >> he said, i want to show you something. will you go in my closet? for what? he said, i want you to put a shopping bag out. i pulled out the shopping bag

and there were women's attire sitting in the bank he said, how would i look dressed up as a woman? i was astounded. and we never, never talked about it ever again i think it was 64 that he claimed he had his first homosexual experience. >> he was drinking at a friend's house, woke up, um. and they got into it. it was the way he put it. >> and the man was performing oral sex on him. and gacy said, well, i felt bad to ask him to stop. and besides, i liked it. and when he finished, i did it to him. and that was according to him, the first time he'd ever been with a man. >> but then something happened. it was, i think, a major psychological blow to him.

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johnny. the life of the party. >> it was very good. neighbor, and we socialize with him. >> but john gacy had been living a lie since childhood, and he realized he had to hide his feelings from everyone. >> john had inclinations that his father found disgusting. he knew his father hated homosexuals. >> his father would have absolutely, positively killed him. >> so john wayne gacy did what everyone did back then. he got married, he had two kids, and he kept his secret life a secret he was living in iowa and he was working for kfc. >> he had a normal job. he was a member of the jaycees. he had a wife. he had a normal life. >> he wanted to show his dad that he should be proud of what he's doing in his life. >> i think his dad might even

have said, john, i was wrong about you. that was a very significant moment for john because he had sought his father's approval all his life. >> there was some evidence during those years that john was going to be a normal suburban guy but then after finally winning his father's approval, something happened. >> it turned out that john gacy's normal suburban life wasn't as normal as it seemed. he was living a secret life that no one else knew about. where he was seeking out young men for sex. >> so he gets involved with a boy in waterloo, the son of someone he knows, and he molests him. and the boy goes to the police. and gacy is charged with sodomy

so what gacy does is find another kid and offer to pay off his car loan if he will bully the other boy out of testifying. so gacy's accomplice takes the other boy out to a cornfield somewhere and sprays mace in his face and beats him up and tells him not to testify and leaves him. when the boy makes it back to civilization, he goes to the police and tells them what has happened. >> so gacy is charged with three other felonies related to beating this kid up, but those charges are ultimately dropped when gacy pleads guilty to sodomy. >> he had a ten year jail sentence for the sodomy conviction. he did very well in jail. he was a model prisoner. he helped other prisoners in the jail community. >> in 1969, his father passed

away of cirrhosis of the liver. it was, i think, a major psychological blow to him. >> his father died believing that his son was a total failure. he was in prison for this horrendous charge. he was exactly what he had called him all of his life. >> this was obviously devastating for gacy, but then he caught a break. >> they paroled him because of his good behavior. >> he was out in 18 months. >> he's free to start a new life in 1971, john bought a house just north of chicago at 8213 west summerdale avenue. >> gacy lived in a real populated area, single story homes, brick homes, you know, older homes working class, striving for middle class

neighborhood, hard working men and women. >> he met an old high school girlfriend that he had dated, carole. she had two children, two little girls of her own. he and carole eventually, and really very quickly got married. >> but it's not long before gacy's back to pursuing his secret life, and carole starts to suspect something. >> i was finding a lot of books in the house of nude men. he would not have much to do with me. we hardly had any sex. and he found it very difficult to have anything to do with me. he did a lot of masturbating, which i knew about, and it wasn't long before their marriage falls apart. >> after carole moved out with the girls, john had the house at 8213 summerdale to himself john actually called those years from 76 to 78 his

cruising days. >> john wayne gacy had sex with hundreds at least, and maybe more kids. but he wasn't looking for victims. he was looking to have sex with someone that wouldn't tell on him. because more than anything else, gacy did not want people to find out that he was homosexual. period. maybe the kid just offhandedly said, you don't want your neighbors to know about this. i mean, anything that would give him the idea that these kids might tell on him could result in the kid's death. easily. the kids who died were the ones that made him feel that he was going to be found out for whatever reason.

>> police today found six more bodies under the john gacy house, all appearing to have been teenaged boys and young men. >> it was two years from when my brother disappeared. we were sitting in front of the tv and they were bringing the bodies out. my mother said, your brother can be one of those guys andy anderson, take a seat. >> look at this. you're wet, disheveled. there's debris hitting you. >> why do you have that on your phone? >> i watch it all the time. hey, listen, we need to be ready for new year's eve. there could be an ice storm or a hurricane. and obviously, confetti maybe you are ready. >> new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn and streaming live en masse. >> chase really knows how to put the heart in your local community. see what i did there? hey, jackie evan, my

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>> welcome back to very scary people. when police descended on john wayne gacy's home and began searching for the bodies of missing young men, they were hoping to find the remains of rob piest. but instead, what they found was a crime scene beyond anything they had imagined. and as the public watched the terrifying story unfold on television, families of missing young men waited on pins and needles to find out if their loved ones were among the victims. >> cook county sheriff's police and des plaines detectives had this house under surveillance for about two weeks. last night, about 9 p.m., officers armed with warrants entered the house, arrested its owner, 36 year old contractor john gacy they suspect there are several more bodies buried here. >> it's suspected because of

the looks of the area down in the crawl space. there are some other mounds and to be more there. >> i had never seen anything like this before. i had never heard anything like this before. i had never experienced anything like this before. >> the evidence technicians, they were digging with spoons to get all the evidence. and really, that was an archeological dig it was a very slow process. >> are you men sifting by hand through the dirt to catch any kind of a trace of evidence here? >> yes, for the most part, yes so you've you've got about half or three quarters of this crawl space yet to go through. >> i would say about three quarters. >> but i'll never forget was the stench. it just overwhelmed a person's olfactory sense. this was a mass graveyard. >> they were slowly but surely pulling out bodies and transporting them with the paddy wagon back to the medical

examiner's office but when the body bags were brought up, they were almost limp bodies weren't brought up gelatinous material was all that was left. >> sure, the bones, to the extent they existed, teeth sometimes skulls. >> and our job? we see a variety of horrific things. but this was out of the norm police today found six more bodies under the john gacy house, all appearing to have been teenaged boys and young men we were sitting in front of the tv and they were bringing the bodies out, and my mother said, your brother can be one of those guys. >> it was two years from when

my brother disappeared. >> nine bodies, identities unknown. victims of a man who probably did not know their names. >> gacy was the headline every day for the next 2 or 3 weeks. how many bodies were taken out of the house that day? how many the next day? and so forth. on and on it was new year's eve, perhaps ring the doorbell and they tell you to sit down. >> they said, we just want you to know your brother is identified with the gacy case. my brother was the fourth body that was recovered from the home it is very, very devastating. but it was a relief to know it's over. so you have two years of like, could it would it maybe could be. i don't know, it's it's finality.

>> gacy's home has become a tourist attraction. every day for a week, outsiders came here to see bodies brought out of gacy's house. his neighbors will never forget that. >> you see bodies in your sleep. >> you see him in your sleep. it's just too much. >> and the police have found at last count, 27 bodies buried under his house and garage. >> he actually ran out of room in the crawl space. and he had no more room to put any bodies down there. i think one was buried under the barbecue grill and one under the garage floor what? >> we didn't know and didn't know for some months was where was rob piest? >> rob piece, gacy's last victim, wasn't found on gacy's property. gacy told police he disposed of his body

elsewhere, along with many others. well, he essentially ran out of room under his house. >> and he thought it'd be best to start throwing them off the bridge into the des plaines river a fair distance away from where he lived. >> we started at 55 bridge over to the plaines river. we worked two boats on the north side of the river. two boats on the south side of the river. >> no luck. >> the search went on for months, but nothing was found. and so then the following spring, the searchers focused on a different area. >> it turns out that within eyeshot of that bridge, there is a nuclear plant where they had a dam, and that's where some of the bodies actually got tied up and were found, including the body of rob piest. >> and it wasn't until his body was recovered the des plaines river. that mystery was solved.

>> it was an emotional time for relatives of the victims. >> 36 year old contractor went to court in an emotion packed trial i can't fool myself. >> it was the most exciting time in the world. >> his life had extremely joyful moments and some really difficult moments. >> you only come across an artist like luther vandross once in a lifetime. >> luther. >> never too much new year's day on cnn these days. >> $20 won't get you far, but at red lobster, you're a big shrimp. and baby, it's shrimp your way. choose three flavors for $20, like crispy dragon shrimp. get to big shrimp in today only at red lobster that's part of the party. >> snooping in the bathroom. oh. party fell. not listening to your dentist. make the sonicare switch all right, champ, be gentle. be effective. be you. i love you so you're 45.

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that this meek person who was so all involved in his community and his work could have done the crimes that he committed. hi, marilyn. >> people just can't believe that this is the john gacy that we knew. well, the john gacy that we knew was just a warm, wonderful, public spirited person. >> and to see this now, it's just unbelievable. >> he didn't expect it from him. >> i had. uh, he was a nice guy. >> gacy was very charming. he was manipulative. he was witty, and he was very intelligent. and you wouldn't know he was a serial killer unless you knew what he did. >> i don't know how he went about it, to tell you the truth, if he did, and i would never. this is something that i would never even think of him doing

the 36 year old contractor went to court in an emotion packed trial. >> my defense was that he was not guilty by reason of insanity because he was suffering from a severe mental disease as a result of the mental disease. he could not appreciate the criminality of his act, nor conform his conduct to the requirements of law in order to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, the defense has to prove that gacy doesn't know the difference between right and wrong at the time that he committed these offenses. >> my role in the trial of john gacy was to serve as a defense expert in regards to his mental state, and i was to try to explain, had he been in contact with reality, had he not been in contact with reality and i tried to explain that this person was not really a person that was rebutted by the state, arguing that he was methodical

in what he did and he wouldn't have buried the bodies if he was truly insane, and he wouldn't have kept doing it over and over. >> and we had parents that had to testify. it was just heart wrenching, to say the least. >> my parents both had to take the stand, and the weirdest thing of all is when we had to identify him and you lean over and you say, yes, that is him. that to me was the hardest thing. knowing that that's the guy that did what he did to my brother john gacy. i mean, he sat there calmly. he looked neat. he didn't seem to get upset about anything. during the closing arguments, the prosecution reminded that the jurors of the victim's they tossing their pictures into the crawl space set up in the courtroom, and he just

continued to do that. and that was a very, very powerful thing it took the jury less than two hours to reject the defense argument that gacy was insane, and to find gacy guilty of murdering 33 young men during a seven year killing spree. >> gacy showed absolutely no emotion as all the murder counts were read, but he winked before he left the courtroom. it was an emotional time for relatives of the victims, and many like ken peace, whose brother was killed, want revenge. >> there's only one solution. now. >> what is that? >> i want them to see him go to the chair and eugenia gertsyk, mother of another victim, tearfully agreed. >> i hope he does get the electric chair. >> then it'll make everybody feel better. i'm sure it'll make the other mothers feel better to a jury which found john gacy guilty of murder, then recommended the death penalty i believe the death sentence was the best thing for him. >> there's no way that he

could have been rehabilitated. it's like, you know what? one less for the state. sorry there, at one minute after midnight, 28 witnesses will watch as a lethal injection cuts off his breathing and stops his heart. >> he took out 33 babies over 14 years ago. and it's time to go. >> new year's eve. live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn. >> i've got this. >> hey, susan. toothbrush. big interview, huh? nice new suit, new haircut, ancient bristle stick. make the sonicare switch. all right, now go knock em dead. boss, can i get the wi-fi? i'm gonna hang here. >> from creating memories. to finding the perfect gift. let us make this holiday season

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the one time clown party lover and mass murderer now sits on death row, waiting. >> if you want to know what my life is like, i log it every day for the last 12 years, all you got to do is ask. i can tell you everything i can tell you the first meal they served me here. because i do it daily. >> what do you do all day? >> every phone call, every thing that i do. every time an officer is around me is logged. every movement that i make is in the book. >> here i remember asking him why he kept all that. i just want this in case i have to go back to trial and i will prove my innocence. >> not long after gacy confessed to dozens of murders, he changes his story and says that he's innocent. >> gacy had concocted this

elaborate idea that someone else had committed these murders. >> when they paint the image that i was this monster who picked up, like, these altar boys along the street and swatted them like flies. i said, this is ludicrous. >> and i said, but you confessed. >> and he said, that was meaningless. they had to confess. they got me in a place where my lawyer said, you better confess. so i did, and gacy had plenty of theories as to who committed these murders. >> we have always contended that there was there was others involved at the time of my arrest, there was three of the suspects, all employees of pdm contractors, all with keys to the house on summerdale set. >> 12 people had keys to my house. any one of them could have been using it as a burial ground because i travel a great deal. they're coming in when i'm not there and they're burying bodies in my crawlspace. >> why would john wayne gacy confess? and then recant? that's a question that will

puzzle shrinks and people who have looked into this matter forever. >> for over a decade while on death row, gacy stays busy and maintains his innocence since he went to jail in 1980, gacy has produced hundreds of works. >> his style is called art brut. >> art brut is the art of the criminally insane. >> here is the hi ho series and that is self-explanatory. it's the seven dwarfs. i've done an array of paint, different variation of paintings, and i do more or less whatever people want. >> gacy appealed his conviction multiple times over the course of 14 years, only to be turned down every time if people don't want to know the truth and the honesty of it, if they want to be convinced or brainwashed into what they believe, then fine, then go ahead and kill me. >> but vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord. because you will have executed somebody

that didn't commit the crime. >> earlier today, a helicopter transferred gacy to stateville prison. there, at one minute after midnight, 28 witnesses will watch as a lethal injection cuts off his breathing and stops his heart for his last meal. >> gacy orders a bucket of kentucky fried chicken, which is really fitting considering he worked there back in the day. >> if we look, well, some good distance now from the walls of the prison, perhaps we see others gathered there. >> you see a candle light vigil. >> those folks holding the candles, those who oppose the death penalty but they were far outnumbered, outnumbered by the t shirts that read no tears for the clown. >> he took our 33 babies over 14 years ago and it's time to go. >> given the hour here now. >> 1204 local time, the

execution of john wayne gacy should be, we are told, now underway the first step, of course, is he's strapped to a gurney, a saline solution. >> iv starts, and then eventually the three killer drugs when gacy was given a chance to give a final message, he said these words. >> kiss my john wayne gacy was pronounced dead at 12:58 a.m.. >> we're happy to report to the victims families and to the hundreds of people that his horror reached out to, and whose lives were affected for all time. justice has finally been served. >> the punishment didn't really fit the crime. it was too easy for him. and i know that's terrible, but i'm really sorry that he really didn't get to suffer. it took

14 years in the making for this to come to an end. >> this should have happened a long time ago. >> my mother had passed away by that time, and her one wish was she wanted to push the button to have him die. and i just remember looking at my husband saying, it's finally over. it's over i think that was the universal opinion that this man got what he deserved. >> the memories of those who were there will soon be all that remains. john wayne gacy's house was long ago torn down. a new one now stands in its place, and the address had been burned forever into chicago's collective consciousness. 8213 west summerdale. >> when all is said and done,

gacy had a broken brain. >> i think floating around within him were all sorts of impersonations. pogo the clown, john wayne gacy, the painting contractor, john wayne gacy, the husband, john wayne gacy, the pedophile, john wayne gacy, the killer. he was an amalgamation of all of these things. >> he was probably the best con man this world has ever known it was the worst of evil. >> if you believe you've lived your life the right way, then you do not have nothing to fear. i've had confession. i have communion, and i am at peace with myself. >> in the end, police recovered 33 of john wayne gacy's victims. but back then, investigators weren't able to

identify eight of the bodies. then in 2011, more than 30 years after gacy confessed, the cook county sheriff's office in chicago reopened the case using advances in forensics and dna technology, they identified two more of gacy's victims, providing at least some closure to those families. to this day, detectives continue working to identify the remaining six victims. i'm donnie wahlberg, thanks for watching