1 00:00:17,788 --> 00:00:21,500 My question would be to you right off the bat is why, 2 00:00:21,542 --> 00:00:23,002 after so many years of silence, 3 00:00:23,044 --> 00:00:25,296 never having a media interview and people have said 4 00:00:25,337 --> 00:00:27,423 that you have given them interviews in years past 5 00:00:27,465 --> 00:00:30,051 Well, that’s hogwash. That’s strictly hogwash. 6 00:00:30,092 --> 00:00:33,721 I’m constantly told that I, I’m misquoted 7 00:00:33,763 --> 00:00:35,556 constantly saying that I said this 8 00:00:35,598 --> 00:00:37,016 and I said that that’s not happened. 9 00:00:37,058 --> 00:00:38,642 So that’s pretty well established on this. 10 00:00:38,684 --> 00:00:40,853 This is the first time you’re speaking publicly 11 00:00:40,895 --> 00:00:42,313 about your case. 12 00:00:42,355 --> 00:00:44,231 Right. I’ve always felt 13 00:00:44,273 --> 00:00:45,858 that my attorneys were handling it 14 00:00:45,900 --> 00:00:48,319 and they said to keep a low profile and stay away from it. 15 00:00:48,361 --> 00:00:53,240 And, uh, in light of all that has been used 16 00:00:53,282 --> 00:00:54,700 against me in the media, 17 00:00:54,742 --> 00:00:57,119 they’ve created this fantasy monster image 18 00:00:57,161 --> 00:00:59,288 and it’s been going on for the last 12 years 19 00:00:59,330 --> 00:01:01,374 and I’ve ever had no comment. 20 00:01:01,415 --> 00:01:03,542 And I had no need to talk to the media 21 00:01:03,584 --> 00:01:06,420 for the simple reason that they were looking for sensationalism 22 00:01:06,462 --> 00:01:07,922 and they were looking for the monster. 23 00:01:07,963 --> 00:01:10,174 When you say fantasy monster image, 24 00:01:10,216 --> 00:01:11,884 what are you referring to by that? 25 00:01:11,926 --> 00:01:15,638 Well, the idea that I’m a homosexual thrill killer 26 00:01:15,679 --> 00:01:20,601 and all that, that garbage and they painted this image of me 27 00:01:20,643 --> 00:01:23,896 that, like I stroll down the streets 28 00:01:23,938 --> 00:01:27,191 and stalked young boys and slaughtered them. 29 00:01:27,233 --> 00:01:29,485 Hell, if you could see my schedule, my work schedule, 30 00:01:29,527 --> 00:01:31,946 you know damn well that I was never out there. 31 00:01:31,987 --> 00:01:33,280 Well you, you were 32 00:01:33,322 --> 00:01:35,157 now, you were indicted, convicted and sentenced 33 00:01:35,199 --> 00:01:38,911 on thirty-three counts of homicide. Is that correct? 34 00:01:38,953 --> 00:01:40,955 That’s correct. 35 00:02:18,743 --> 00:02:21,370 Police digging under a house in Des Plaines, Illinois, 36 00:02:21,412 --> 00:02:22,997 found four more bodies today. 37 00:02:23,039 --> 00:02:26,208 The owner of the house, a man named John Wayne Gacy, 38 00:02:26,250 --> 00:02:27,501 is suspected of having killed 39 00:02:27,543 --> 00:02:29,587 as many as thirty two teenage boys 40 00:02:29,628 --> 00:02:32,798 and burying most of them under and around his house and garage. 41 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:35,009 But the story, of course, is far from over. 42 00:02:35,051 --> 00:02:37,970 Investigators know there are bodies or parts of bodies 43 00:02:38,012 --> 00:02:40,765 still to be dug out of this muddy crawl space. 44 00:02:40,806 --> 00:02:42,892 Police have been answering hundreds of telephone calls 45 00:02:42,933 --> 00:02:44,852 from the families of missing teenage boys 46 00:02:44,894 --> 00:02:46,437 all over the country. 47 00:02:46,479 --> 00:02:49,190 Before the murders, Gacy was well-respected in his community. 48 00:02:49,231 --> 00:02:50,900 He was active in local politics 49 00:02:50,941 --> 00:02:53,652 and even dressed up as a clown to entertain children. 50 00:02:53,694 --> 00:02:59,784 He’s a very good neighbor and we socialize with him. 51 00:02:59,825 --> 00:03:01,118 In December 1978, 52 00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:04,330 the disappearance of a 15 year old boy led police 53 00:03:04,372 --> 00:03:06,415 to Gacy’s suburban Chicago home. 54 00:03:06,457 --> 00:03:07,875 In the weeks that followed. 55 00:03:07,917 --> 00:03:11,295 Police found 29 bodies buried in shallow graves 56 00:03:11,337 --> 00:03:13,214 under his home and near it. 57 00:03:13,255 --> 00:03:16,759 Police also found four bodies in nearby streams. 58 00:03:16,801 --> 00:03:21,347 You see bodies in your sleep, you see him in your sleep. 59 00:03:21,389 --> 00:03:23,349 It’s just too much. 60 00:03:31,273 --> 00:03:35,444 It was December of 1978, 61 00:03:36,529 --> 00:03:39,115 I was getting ready to do my laundry 62 00:03:39,156 --> 00:03:40,658 and I was watching TV. 63 00:03:40,700 --> 00:03:42,827 Today, police found four more bodies 64 00:03:42,868 --> 00:03:45,287 in John Gacy’s suburban Chicago home. 65 00:03:45,329 --> 00:03:46,789 And saw the news flash 66 00:03:46,831 --> 00:03:50,626 about bodies being found under a house in Chicago. 67 00:03:50,668 --> 00:03:52,920 One of John Gacy’s neighbors said all of this 68 00:03:52,962 --> 00:03:54,630 is like a nightmare. 69 00:03:54,672 --> 00:03:56,924 And I was dumbfounded. 70 00:03:56,966 --> 00:04:00,344 It’s like, could one person do this? 71 00:04:01,554 --> 00:04:07,852 I probably first wrote to him in 83, 84, 1988, 72 00:04:08,519 --> 00:04:10,688 John finally responded to one of my letters, 73 00:04:11,105 --> 00:04:14,775 and from there we started corresponding 74 00:04:14,817 --> 00:04:16,485 and talking on the phone. 75 00:04:16,902 --> 00:04:19,488 I thought I was gonna do either a book 76 00:04:19,530 --> 00:04:21,198 or, you know, a short film. 77 00:04:21,866 --> 00:04:26,245 But my interest was more on a personal level. 78 00:04:26,287 --> 00:04:27,997 I wanted to ask him 79 00:04:28,956 --> 00:04:30,583 why? 80 00:04:30,624 --> 00:04:33,961 I started recording my phone calls with Gacy 81 00:04:34,003 --> 00:04:37,048 simply because I couldn’t take notes very fast. 82 00:04:37,089 --> 00:04:40,468 This call is subject to being monitored and recorded. 83 00:04:40,926 --> 00:04:45,681 Hang up to decline or dial five five to accept. 84 00:04:51,812 --> 00:04:53,898 By the end of 88? You know, 85 00:04:53,939 --> 00:04:58,527 we were talking sometimes four and five times a week. 86 00:05:17,671 --> 00:05:23,844 In January of 1989, I flew into St. Louis 87 00:05:25,012 --> 00:05:29,183 and went to Menard Correctional Facility, 88 00:05:29,225 --> 00:05:31,894 which is in the very southern tip of Illinois. 89 00:05:32,436 --> 00:05:37,650 And I started visiting him, which I did every three months 90 00:05:37,692 --> 00:05:41,779 for three days at a time. For six years. 91 00:05:43,072 --> 00:05:46,575 Gacy’s the one who wanted an interview. And, 92 00:05:46,617 --> 00:05:49,829 Of course, the Department of Corrections 93 00:05:49,870 --> 00:05:53,749 didn’t want that at all. They didn’t want to give Gacy 94 00:05:53,791 --> 00:05:57,753 any more attention than they had to and they didn’t 95 00:05:57,795 --> 00:05:59,338 You know, who am I am nobody. 96 00:05:59,380 --> 00:06:02,383 And then, oddly enough, Gacy said oh well you have 97 00:06:02,425 --> 00:06:05,177 to talk to my good friend who works at the FBI. 98 00:06:06,721 --> 00:06:09,348 And I said, who’s that? And he goes, Robert Ressler. 99 00:06:09,390 --> 00:06:12,768 Bob Ressler helped establish the FBI’s behavioral unit 100 00:06:12,810 --> 00:06:14,937 that investigates serial killers. 101 00:06:14,979 --> 00:06:16,981 I think Mr. Gacy enjoys control. 102 00:06:17,023 --> 00:06:20,109 He enjoys power and dominance over other people. 103 00:06:20,151 --> 00:06:23,946 These are some of the base criterias for a serial killer. 104 00:06:23,988 --> 00:06:27,867 Robert Ressler was a special agent at the FBI. 105 00:06:28,325 --> 00:06:31,704 He basically coined the phrase serial killer. 106 00:06:32,663 --> 00:06:34,081 Bob grew up in Chicago 107 00:06:34,123 --> 00:06:37,668 and he was in Chicago when Gacy was arrested. 108 00:06:39,003 --> 00:06:42,840 So he was involved from the very beginning. The FBI academy, 109 00:06:43,299 --> 00:06:46,927 reached out to many serial killers to do interviews, 110 00:06:46,969 --> 00:06:50,514 kind of to educate students back at the academy. 111 00:06:51,182 --> 00:06:55,061 And Bob did most of those interviews. 112 00:06:57,355 --> 00:06:59,148 In 1989, 113 00:06:59,190 --> 00:07:01,275 I contacted Bob. 114 00:07:16,665 --> 00:07:18,125 I said, would you be interested 115 00:07:18,167 --> 00:07:20,169 in doing an interview? Because that may be the way 116 00:07:20,211 --> 00:07:22,713 the Department of Corrections will say yes. 117 00:07:29,303 --> 00:07:30,179 So that’s how it started. 118 00:07:35,851 --> 00:07:39,313 Ressler and Gacy taped their interview 119 00:07:39,355 --> 00:07:43,526 in the morning of May 4th, 1992. 120 00:07:43,567 --> 00:07:46,445 It must have been a big deal for them to bring John 121 00:07:46,487 --> 00:07:48,781 from one secure area to another. 122 00:07:49,281 --> 00:07:52,702 There are a couple shots where it’s like, you know, 123 00:07:52,743 --> 00:07:54,995 a scene from a Christmas Carol 124 00:07:55,037 --> 00:07:57,623 dragging the chains, walking through. 125 00:07:58,249 --> 00:08:02,795 It was frightening. 126 00:08:08,801 --> 00:08:10,553 We used the warden’s office, 127 00:08:10,594 --> 00:08:15,391 he very generously gave us his office to do the interview in. 128 00:08:15,433 --> 00:08:16,892 Yeah, I was going to ask you 129 00:08:16,934 --> 00:08:19,145 in so far as sound goes, if I’m down with my head, 130 00:08:19,186 --> 00:08:21,397 does that hurt your sound quality? 131 00:08:21,439 --> 00:08:24,275 No, it’s OK. Just don’t, try to move around too much. 132 00:08:25,735 --> 00:08:28,029 If you break into song give em a cue. 133 00:08:28,070 --> 00:08:30,072 I aint gonna break into any song. 134 00:08:30,114 --> 00:08:32,158 John’s sitting there at the table 135 00:08:32,199 --> 00:08:36,328 with his little stack of information and I said, 136 00:08:36,829 --> 00:08:39,457 so can can we take the handcuffs off? 137 00:08:40,166 --> 00:08:42,126 And the warden looks at the guard. 138 00:08:42,168 --> 00:08:45,463 The guard looks at the warden and they go, Yeah, why not? 139 00:08:46,464 --> 00:08:50,384 First time I had ever seen John without handcuffs. 140 00:08:50,426 --> 00:08:53,596 And so then I immediately said to the cameraman, 141 00:08:54,221 --> 00:08:58,559 anything that starts to get slow or dull cut to his hands. 142 00:08:59,185 --> 00:09:00,895 There’s going to be a tell there somewhere. 143 00:09:00,936 --> 00:09:02,980 And we’ll go into the lead in as to 144 00:09:03,022 --> 00:09:06,067 as you know, you were at 1978. 145 00:09:06,108 --> 00:09:07,860 Yeah. You were present. Yeah. 146 00:09:08,361 --> 00:09:09,779 OK, that’s that’s the way I’d like to start. 147 00:09:09,820 --> 00:09:11,322 And I’d like to kind of go 148 00:09:11,364 --> 00:09:13,032 Well what do you got there? Let’s see your list. 149 00:09:13,074 --> 00:09:14,367 I’d just like to go through the generalities, 150 00:09:14,408 --> 00:09:15,785 maybe talk about the background of the thing. 151 00:09:15,826 --> 00:09:18,746 The the, uh, the original case. 152 00:09:18,788 --> 00:09:22,208 John is a master manipulator. 153 00:09:22,666 --> 00:09:25,419 He comes across as 154 00:09:25,836 --> 00:09:28,172 so damn normal. 155 00:09:28,798 --> 00:09:31,008 Uh, bleeping of the language. 156 00:09:31,050 --> 00:09:34,637 I will watch the language. He’s going to try. 157 00:09:34,678 --> 00:09:37,139 John does tend to slip into 158 00:09:37,181 --> 00:09:37,848 Well I, 159 00:09:37,890 --> 00:09:39,141 I call it as I see it, 160 00:09:39,183 --> 00:09:40,559 and some people can’t understand that. 161 00:09:40,601 --> 00:09:42,019 We’re learning so much now 162 00:09:42,061 --> 00:09:44,480 that we would never have known at the time. 163 00:09:44,522 --> 00:09:45,648 Are you going to talk first? 164 00:09:45,690 --> 00:09:47,316 Yeah, I’ll kind of introduce 165 00:09:47,358 --> 00:09:48,859 Parts that I missed 166 00:09:49,694 --> 00:09:54,448 or didn’t know about. Or didn’t want to think about. 167 00:09:55,116 --> 00:09:58,077 This should be the definitive story 168 00:09:58,703 --> 00:10:00,204 and not just about Gacy, 169 00:10:00,246 --> 00:10:03,499 but it’s about the families that were affected, 170 00:10:03,541 --> 00:10:04,792 the victims. 171 00:10:05,668 --> 00:10:07,628 Hopefully making some sense 172 00:10:07,670 --> 00:10:09,422 about some of the loose ends. 173 00:10:10,381 --> 00:10:12,383 It takes time for history to happen. 174 00:10:14,051 --> 00:10:16,721 All right, so whenever the hell they’re ready. 175 00:10:25,021 --> 00:10:28,190 In 1978, when the Gacy story broke, 176 00:10:28,232 --> 00:10:30,401 I was a general assignment reporter 177 00:10:30,443 --> 00:10:34,030 and a weekend anchor at ABC Seven in Chicago. 178 00:10:35,281 --> 00:10:40,745 Chicago was a dream job for me. Reporters, news people, 179 00:10:41,245 --> 00:10:44,040 the people that the folks of Chicago 180 00:10:44,081 --> 00:10:45,416 invited into their homes 181 00:10:45,458 --> 00:10:48,127 every night were treated very, very well. 182 00:10:48,169 --> 00:10:51,714 And if you go back to the days of the front page 183 00:10:51,756 --> 00:10:54,008 when journalism was king in Chicago 184 00:10:54,050 --> 00:10:55,718 and there were eight newspapers, 185 00:10:56,135 --> 00:10:59,513 Chicago was the epicenter of great news coverage. 186 00:11:07,938 --> 00:11:10,608 I remember the moment very, very well. 187 00:11:11,233 --> 00:11:15,404 I walked into my apartment on East Randolph Street in Chicago 188 00:11:15,446 --> 00:11:18,366 and the phone was ringing. I picked up the phone 189 00:11:18,407 --> 00:11:21,285 and it was the person who would become a major source 190 00:11:21,327 --> 00:11:23,621 for this story for years to come. 191 00:11:24,413 --> 00:11:30,419 The source said get to 82- 13 West Summerdale right away. 192 00:11:30,461 --> 00:11:35,508 I guarantee it’ll be worth it. And that began one of 193 00:11:35,549 --> 00:11:38,302 the most incredible stories I’ve ever covered. 194 00:11:41,472 --> 00:11:43,057 82 13 West Summerdale 195 00:11:43,099 --> 00:11:46,268 is in a neighborhood called Norwood Park Township, 196 00:11:46,310 --> 00:11:49,814 just outside of the community of Norwich on Chicago’s West Side. 197 00:11:50,481 --> 00:11:52,358 I’ve been given very, very sketchy information 198 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:54,110 about what I was about to walk into. 199 00:11:54,151 --> 00:11:57,196 It was something about bodies buried. 200 00:12:00,074 --> 00:12:02,618 So it’s now 11:30, 12 at night, 201 00:12:02,660 --> 00:12:05,329 there’s no newscast until the next morning. 202 00:12:05,371 --> 00:12:09,375 This was well before the days of the internet and Twitter 203 00:12:09,417 --> 00:12:12,128 and getting something quickly on the internet 204 00:12:12,169 --> 00:12:13,921 before anybody else got to it. 205 00:12:15,297 --> 00:12:16,841 1978 206 00:12:17,258 --> 00:12:20,553 was a time when there were murders in Chicago, 207 00:12:20,594 --> 00:12:24,849 but there were more drug related murders, gang related murders. 208 00:12:25,224 --> 00:12:26,934 That neighborhood wasn’t one you 209 00:12:26,976 --> 00:12:29,395 usually associated with violence. 210 00:12:29,437 --> 00:12:31,647 It was a working class neighborhood 211 00:12:31,689 --> 00:12:34,483 which was basically quiet most of the time. 212 00:12:35,526 --> 00:12:37,611 So to have something like that out 213 00:12:37,653 --> 00:12:41,157 there was certainly unusual, if not unheard of. 214 00:12:42,658 --> 00:12:45,828 December in Chicago is not fun for anybody. 215 00:12:45,870 --> 00:12:47,580 And this was a cold December, 216 00:12:48,205 --> 00:12:50,708 but you can endure almost anything 217 00:12:51,125 --> 00:12:53,044 if the story is big enough. 218 00:12:55,379 --> 00:12:59,341 This was something the likes of which I had never seen. 219 00:12:59,383 --> 00:13:01,594 That from now until the day I die, 220 00:13:01,635 --> 00:13:03,471 I will be able to remember 221 00:13:03,512 --> 00:13:07,224 and be able to feel and touch and see and smell. 222 00:13:17,193 --> 00:13:18,944 When I got to the scene, 223 00:13:18,986 --> 00:13:20,905 I believe I was the only reporter there, 224 00:13:20,946 --> 00:13:22,531 but as the night wore on, 225 00:13:22,573 --> 00:13:26,035 word started to get out and others arrived. 226 00:13:29,121 --> 00:13:31,624 By morning, the story had started to come out. 227 00:13:32,583 --> 00:13:35,336 The first name to surface was Rob Piest. 228 00:13:35,378 --> 00:13:37,797 He was the trigger to the whole investigation. 229 00:13:38,714 --> 00:13:42,426 Rob Piest was working at a pharmacy in Des Plaines 230 00:13:42,468 --> 00:13:44,637 when all of a sudden he disappeared. 231 00:13:46,263 --> 00:13:48,349 Joe Kozenczak and his fellow detectives 232 00:13:48,391 --> 00:13:49,850 on the Des Plaines police force 233 00:13:49,892 --> 00:13:51,852 weren’t out to make history or write the book 234 00:13:51,894 --> 00:13:54,772 on serial killers on December 12th, 1978. 235 00:13:55,272 --> 00:13:57,525 They were just looking for a missing boy. 236 00:13:58,275 --> 00:14:01,946 As I was looking through the police reports on December 12th, 237 00:14:02,988 --> 00:14:08,119 I noticed the missing persons case report of a young boy. 238 00:14:09,495 --> 00:14:13,249 People say policemen have a gut instinct. In this case, 239 00:14:14,250 --> 00:14:15,584 that’s how I’d have to describe it. 240 00:14:15,626 --> 00:14:18,337 I just felt there was something in this case 241 00:14:18,379 --> 00:14:21,632 that we should look at closer. 242 00:14:21,674 --> 00:14:24,427 I was with the Des Plaines Illinois Police Department. 243 00:14:25,010 --> 00:14:27,555 I started there in 1972. 244 00:14:28,931 --> 00:14:30,975 I got a call from Captain Kozenczak 245 00:14:31,016 --> 00:14:33,269 on the 13th of December. 246 00:14:34,186 --> 00:14:36,564 Rob Piest, 15 year old boy from Des Plaines 247 00:14:36,605 --> 00:14:39,525 had gone missing under unusual circumstances. 248 00:14:40,401 --> 00:14:43,738 Late in the day and the 11th of December, 249 00:14:43,779 --> 00:14:46,741 his mother had come to his place of employment, 250 00:14:47,116 --> 00:14:49,243 which was a pharmacy in Des Plaines, 251 00:14:49,285 --> 00:14:52,121 picking him up at the end of his workday. 252 00:14:53,497 --> 00:14:55,374 Rob Piest had come out and spoke with his mom 253 00:14:55,416 --> 00:14:57,710 and said, hey, listen, I’ll be done in a few minutes. 254 00:14:57,752 --> 00:15:00,171 I’ve got this contractor that I want to talk to. 255 00:15:00,796 --> 00:15:04,383 I understand he’s hiring and I could probably 256 00:15:04,425 --> 00:15:06,552 make substantially more than I’m making here. 257 00:15:06,594 --> 00:15:08,345 So if you don’t mind, I’ll just be a few minutes. 258 00:15:08,387 --> 00:15:11,182 I’m going to go talk to this guy and I’ll be right back. 259 00:15:11,223 --> 00:15:12,933 He was pretty excited about it, 260 00:15:12,975 --> 00:15:15,269 and I told him there’d be no problem 261 00:15:15,311 --> 00:15:16,562 that I’d wait for him. 262 00:15:17,313 --> 00:15:19,648 And that was the last I saw of him. 263 00:15:20,733 --> 00:15:21,859 A little after 9:00, 264 00:15:21,901 --> 00:15:23,736 mom was waiting for him to return. 265 00:15:23,778 --> 00:15:25,363 He didn’t return. 266 00:15:25,404 --> 00:15:27,198 After Rob didn’t show up, 267 00:15:27,239 --> 00:15:29,283 Mr. and Mrs. Piest searched all around 268 00:15:29,325 --> 00:15:31,827 Des Plaines frantically looking for him. 269 00:15:32,995 --> 00:15:35,706 Rob Piest was very, very close to his family. 270 00:15:35,748 --> 00:15:39,210 They were going to celebrate the mother’s birthday that night. 271 00:15:39,251 --> 00:15:41,587 And at that point, the Piest family launched 272 00:15:41,629 --> 00:15:43,297 a full court press 273 00:15:43,339 --> 00:15:46,842 into the disappearance of a child 274 00:15:47,635 --> 00:15:51,680 who to them was inconceivable to have disappeared. 275 00:15:52,348 --> 00:15:55,476 We knew something was wrong. So from there, 276 00:15:55,518 --> 00:16:01,023 we went to the police and filed a missing persons report. 277 00:16:02,316 --> 00:16:04,652 Missing persons back in that era, 278 00:16:04,694 --> 00:16:07,530 and even now are pretty much a dime a dozen. 279 00:16:07,571 --> 00:16:09,198 We’ll get a call of a missing person 280 00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:12,451 and they most likely have run away previously 281 00:16:12,493 --> 00:16:14,245 or had problems in school 282 00:16:14,286 --> 00:16:16,372 or with the family or something like that. 283 00:16:16,414 --> 00:16:18,457 It was totally different with Rob Piest. 284 00:16:18,499 --> 00:16:20,876 I mean, he was like a really good kid. 285 00:16:21,544 --> 00:16:24,130 He enjoyed school. He enjoyed his family. 286 00:16:24,547 --> 00:16:27,550 So it was really unusual for him to go missing. 287 00:16:28,342 --> 00:16:30,386 When the police report was being taken, 288 00:16:30,845 --> 00:16:34,807 the desk officer overheard the mother make a statement 289 00:16:35,433 --> 00:16:36,600 to the father saying, 290 00:16:36,642 --> 00:16:39,311 I wonder who the contractor guy was. 291 00:16:39,353 --> 00:16:40,646 That, to me 292 00:16:40,688 --> 00:16:43,649 and he just jumped out like, who is this? 293 00:16:43,691 --> 00:16:46,027 And they did a little background work on this. 294 00:16:46,068 --> 00:16:47,695 Find out that the contractor 295 00:16:47,737 --> 00:16:50,906 that was there was a gentleman by the name of John Wayne Gacy 296 00:16:50,948 --> 00:16:54,368 and his expertise is he remodels pharmacies. 297 00:16:54,410 --> 00:16:55,995 Now, give me kind of 298 00:16:56,037 --> 00:16:58,456 just an overview of the business that you eventually established. 299 00:16:58,497 --> 00:17:00,583 The construction work. Is this self-taught? 300 00:17:00,624 --> 00:17:03,377 The construction and maintenance work? 301 00:17:03,419 --> 00:17:04,879 I started doing painting, 302 00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:08,299 and then I started doing wallpapering and decorating. 303 00:17:08,340 --> 00:17:12,178 And inside of three years PDM, which is painting, 304 00:17:12,219 --> 00:17:13,637 decorating and maintenance, 305 00:17:13,679 --> 00:17:15,681 was doing a million dollars a year. 306 00:17:15,723 --> 00:17:16,682 And that was- 307 00:17:16,724 --> 00:17:18,225 and I only had four employees. 308 00:17:18,267 --> 00:17:19,268 And that was the business you were in 309 00:17:19,310 --> 00:17:20,853 at the time of the arrests? 310 00:17:20,895 --> 00:17:22,271 That’s correct. 311 00:17:22,313 --> 00:17:25,316 PDM in nineteen seventy four became a corporation 312 00:17:25,816 --> 00:17:28,569 and then I owned PDM Contractors Corporation. 313 00:17:28,611 --> 00:17:32,615 I own PDM Plumbing, PDM Concrete and PDM Decorating. 314 00:17:33,282 --> 00:17:35,201 And then I branched off with another partner 315 00:17:35,242 --> 00:17:36,952 into Raphco Construction. 316 00:17:38,037 --> 00:17:41,791 And from there we were doing strictly drugstores. 317 00:17:42,249 --> 00:17:44,585 John was successful in his, you know, 318 00:17:44,627 --> 00:17:46,921 remodeling business of drugstores. 319 00:17:46,962 --> 00:17:50,591 He was very good at chatting up the proprietor, 320 00:17:50,633 --> 00:17:53,469 suggesting how to lay, you know, lay out the store 321 00:17:53,511 --> 00:17:56,847 so that people would see more products and buy something. 322 00:17:56,889 --> 00:17:58,099 And, you know, 323 00:17:58,140 --> 00:18:00,810 he hired teenagers to do the work. 324 00:18:03,813 --> 00:18:06,941 I worked for John’s business PDM contractors 325 00:18:06,982 --> 00:18:14,990 in the summer of 1975 and then sporadically into 76. 326 00:18:16,033 --> 00:18:20,121 He was a decent boss. He’d like to joke around, 327 00:18:20,162 --> 00:18:23,624 he was a little bit heavyset, so he kind of had, you know, 328 00:18:23,666 --> 00:18:28,629 the aura of being jovial and joking around 329 00:18:28,671 --> 00:18:32,174 and seemed to not take things too seriously. 330 00:18:33,259 --> 00:18:35,511 When I was working there, I think there was about four 331 00:18:35,553 --> 00:18:38,305 or five of us that were working for him 332 00:18:38,806 --> 00:18:42,560 and the age was all sixteen, which was how old 333 00:18:42,601 --> 00:18:47,690 I was up to about 19 or 20 for the older guys. 334 00:18:48,274 --> 00:18:52,403 I think everyone was in about that four or five year age span. 335 00:18:53,195 --> 00:18:56,365 I think he utilized young boys 336 00:18:56,407 --> 00:18:59,410 or adolescent boys in his business 337 00:18:59,452 --> 00:19:02,538 because, yes, they were cheaper than if he hired perhaps 338 00:19:02,580 --> 00:19:05,833 a real carpenter, a union carpenter. 339 00:19:05,875 --> 00:19:09,253 He was always looking for inexpensive labor. 340 00:19:10,379 --> 00:19:11,922 And, you know, young boys provided 341 00:19:11,964 --> 00:19:15,801 that. At least at that time that’s what we thought. 342 00:19:18,554 --> 00:19:20,681 You know, thinking back, yes, I should have been 343 00:19:20,723 --> 00:19:24,560 much more unnerved and afraid, but I wasn’t. 344 00:19:25,811 --> 00:19:28,564 Part of his success in that was his demeanor, 345 00:19:29,398 --> 00:19:31,942 you know, people can put on two different fronts. 346 00:19:33,402 --> 00:19:35,571 Because obviously, he was a monster. 347 00:19:45,956 --> 00:19:47,666 When the investigators started out, 348 00:19:47,708 --> 00:19:49,251 they learned from the Piest family 349 00:19:49,293 --> 00:19:52,296 that Rob was going to go talk to John Gacy about a job, 350 00:19:52,797 --> 00:19:55,007 and that’s the last he had been seen. 351 00:19:55,049 --> 00:19:56,926 Well we were just in shock. 352 00:19:56,967 --> 00:20:00,137 We couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. 353 00:20:01,013 --> 00:20:02,848 We didn’t know what happened to him. 354 00:20:03,391 --> 00:20:08,270 We knew it was not of his own choosing because he loved us. 355 00:20:08,312 --> 00:20:09,814 He loved his home. 356 00:20:09,855 --> 00:20:12,733 If there was any way for him to come home, he would. 357 00:20:13,401 --> 00:20:15,444 So we knew something really had happened. 358 00:20:15,486 --> 00:20:17,530 We had no idea at that time 359 00:20:17,571 --> 00:20:19,699 it would turn into something like this. 360 00:20:21,951 --> 00:20:24,078 When you’re on a story like this, 361 00:20:24,537 --> 00:20:26,539 in addition to covering who, 362 00:20:26,580 --> 00:20:30,918 where, when, why, what happened, you also start to say, OK. 363 00:20:32,086 --> 00:20:33,546 Who else knew about this? 364 00:20:33,587 --> 00:20:35,256 Did the guy do anything before? 365 00:20:35,756 --> 00:20:37,425 Is there a police record? 366 00:20:37,466 --> 00:20:39,468 Is there something we can find out? 367 00:20:40,511 --> 00:20:42,680 We started to call this person 368 00:20:42,722 --> 00:20:44,390 to find out what was going on, 369 00:20:45,141 --> 00:20:48,018 and he gave his name as John Wayne Gacy, 370 00:20:49,061 --> 00:20:53,482 and stated that he didn’t know anything about any missing kids 371 00:20:53,524 --> 00:20:56,944 from the drug store. He was a little, 372 00:20:59,071 --> 00:21:02,241 defensive and based on that, 373 00:21:02,783 --> 00:21:05,286 we wanted to pursue him a little further. 374 00:21:08,039 --> 00:21:11,000 We were trying to do some background record checks, 375 00:21:11,042 --> 00:21:14,503 but in 1978, you know, it’s not like it is today. 376 00:21:14,545 --> 00:21:17,256 instantaneously, you get a criminal history, 377 00:21:17,298 --> 00:21:18,674 you can find out everything you want. 378 00:21:18,716 --> 00:21:22,011 In 1978, the Chicago Police Department 379 00:21:23,220 --> 00:21:26,265 had a file called the Alpha File, 380 00:21:26,307 --> 00:21:27,892 and they would, 381 00:21:27,933 --> 00:21:32,772 based on what you told them, search these files by hand. 382 00:21:33,814 --> 00:21:35,900 We called Chicago Police Department. 383 00:21:36,692 --> 00:21:38,903 And said we’re trying to find out more about this guy 384 00:21:38,944 --> 00:21:40,988 we’re looking at, can you help us? 385 00:21:41,655 --> 00:21:44,033 Do you have any criminal history 386 00:21:44,075 --> 00:21:45,242 on him on record? 387 00:21:45,284 --> 00:21:47,870 And this Police officer said 388 00:21:47,912 --> 00:21:50,915 the guy’s on parole to Chicago 389 00:21:51,499 --> 00:21:55,920 from the state of Iowa. He served prison time. 390 00:21:55,961 --> 00:21:59,507 He was convicted of sodomy of a young boy. 391 00:22:00,841 --> 00:22:03,469 And the hair stood up on the back of our necks. 392 00:22:05,179 --> 00:22:08,391 When they found that he had been arrested in Iowa 393 00:22:08,432 --> 00:22:10,810 for sexually molesting a young boy. 394 00:22:11,769 --> 00:22:14,146 That obviously threw some flags up. 395 00:22:14,188 --> 00:22:17,274 They put together a couple of detectives later that evening 396 00:22:17,316 --> 00:22:22,405 and went looking for Gacy. And when they got to his home. 397 00:22:23,447 --> 00:22:24,865 He was getting ready to leave. 398 00:22:24,907 --> 00:22:26,575 Now they did not search the house at that time 399 00:22:26,617 --> 00:22:27,743 or look through the house. 400 00:22:27,785 --> 00:22:32,081 No, according - afterwards, 401 00:22:32,123 --> 00:22:34,250 they’re claiming that they came to the front door of the house 402 00:22:34,291 --> 00:22:36,794 and knocked on the door and that I hid from them. 403 00:22:36,836 --> 00:22:38,170 Why didn’t you let them in at that time 404 00:22:38,212 --> 00:22:40,131 when they’re knocking at the front door? 405 00:22:40,715 --> 00:22:42,216 There was no way I could have heard them, 406 00:22:42,258 --> 00:22:45,010 I was way in the back of the house, in the rec room, 407 00:22:45,052 --> 00:22:46,887 on the telephone. When they walked, 408 00:22:46,929 --> 00:22:49,181 finally walked around the side of the house, 409 00:22:49,223 --> 00:22:51,684 I could look out the picture window, see them there, 410 00:22:51,726 --> 00:22:52,977 because I was on the phone 411 00:22:53,018 --> 00:22:54,437 and they could see me clearly, too, 412 00:22:54,478 --> 00:22:56,022 sitting on the couch on the telephone 413 00:22:56,063 --> 00:22:57,523 because I was talking to my sister 414 00:22:57,565 --> 00:22:59,692 in regards to a death in our family. 415 00:22:59,734 --> 00:23:03,029 So I told her that I would call her back, 416 00:23:03,612 --> 00:23:05,031 got up, went to the door 417 00:23:05,072 --> 00:23:07,241 and he introduced himself as Kozenczak and Pickell 418 00:23:07,283 --> 00:23:12,079 and they wanted to come in and talk to me about Robert Piest. 419 00:23:12,121 --> 00:23:14,874 And I told them that I had not had any conversation with him, 420 00:23:14,915 --> 00:23:18,085 but I said, if you want to talk to me, then come back there. 421 00:23:19,420 --> 00:23:21,547 We just pushed him a little. 422 00:23:22,173 --> 00:23:24,091 We said, we need you to come in the police station, 423 00:23:24,133 --> 00:23:27,553 give us a witness statement about what you did see 424 00:23:27,595 --> 00:23:31,557 when you were at the drugstore and he said, I don’t have time. 425 00:23:31,599 --> 00:23:33,267 I can’t I can’t do that now. 426 00:23:33,309 --> 00:23:35,770 And they wanted me to come down to the police station. 427 00:23:35,811 --> 00:23:38,481 OK, well, I didn’t have time because I was doing work 428 00:23:38,522 --> 00:23:40,107 for the county and stuff like that. 429 00:23:40,149 --> 00:23:43,736 As soon as we left Gacy’s house, 430 00:23:43,778 --> 00:23:46,238 he attempted to flee from the area, 431 00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:52,078 running to his car and driving away at a high rate of speed. 432 00:23:53,537 --> 00:23:55,247 Now who does that right? 433 00:23:55,289 --> 00:24:02,046 I had decided, based on Gacy’s actions- trying to run from us, 434 00:24:02,922 --> 00:24:04,799 and his attitude in the house, 435 00:24:05,341 --> 00:24:08,469 that I was going to try to get a search warrant. 436 00:24:12,056 --> 00:24:13,933 Went into the police station finally on the next day 437 00:24:13,974 --> 00:24:17,228 after- this was after Kozenczak and Pickell were at the house. 438 00:24:17,645 --> 00:24:19,689 They had asked me to come in 439 00:24:19,730 --> 00:24:22,108 and give me an account of my whereabouts. 440 00:24:22,149 --> 00:24:24,110 When Gacy came into the station, 441 00:24:24,151 --> 00:24:26,654 it was my job to entertain him for a couple hours 442 00:24:26,696 --> 00:24:28,989 because he was only there for to be interviewed. 443 00:24:29,031 --> 00:24:31,617 We couldn’t detain him, but we didn’t want him to leave 444 00:24:31,659 --> 00:24:33,577 until we got the search warrant. 445 00:24:34,578 --> 00:24:36,414 So for two hours I sat there with him 446 00:24:36,455 --> 00:24:40,209 and I quickly analyze and figure out this guy was 447 00:24:40,251 --> 00:24:44,588 a blowhard that had a big ego. So I just started feeding it. 448 00:24:44,630 --> 00:24:47,800 He’d tell me about how successful at business he was 449 00:24:48,342 --> 00:24:50,761 and how he took care of the neighborhood. 450 00:24:50,803 --> 00:24:52,972 He was the go to guy in his neighborhood. 451 00:24:53,013 --> 00:24:55,725 And I would ask him, you know, about people he knew. 452 00:24:55,766 --> 00:24:57,852 And he started telling me that he knew this guy, 453 00:24:57,893 --> 00:25:00,354 he knew that guy, uh, politician, 454 00:25:00,396 --> 00:25:04,108 so I would just act like I was really impressed 455 00:25:04,150 --> 00:25:06,193 and he was just going nuts telling me all about that. 456 00:25:06,235 --> 00:25:07,987 So it was no problem keeping him there. 457 00:25:08,029 --> 00:25:09,864 The thing of it is, is that, 458 00:25:12,033 --> 00:25:16,203 on that same day, they held me there for nine hours 459 00:25:16,245 --> 00:25:17,830 and while holding me there for nine hours, 460 00:25:17,872 --> 00:25:19,331 they executed a search warrant. 461 00:25:19,373 --> 00:25:22,334 The first search warrant was executed on December 13th. 462 00:25:23,002 --> 00:25:24,503 That is the search warrant where they claimed 463 00:25:24,545 --> 00:25:27,131 they went through the house looking for Robert Piest. 464 00:25:27,173 --> 00:25:29,091 It was written up to be looking for Robert Piest 465 00:25:29,133 --> 00:25:31,052 and Robert Piest wasn’t there. 466 00:25:32,970 --> 00:25:34,930 Gacy lived in an unincorporated area 467 00:25:34,972 --> 00:25:37,349 of Cook County called Norwood Park. 468 00:25:37,391 --> 00:25:40,102 The location of his residence was significant 469 00:25:40,144 --> 00:25:41,896 because he lived a stone’s throw away 470 00:25:41,937 --> 00:25:44,398 from the Nisson Pharmacy in Des Plaines, 471 00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:46,150 where Rob Piest was working. 472 00:25:47,109 --> 00:25:50,154 The first search warrant was an attempt 473 00:25:50,196 --> 00:25:54,325 to find Rob Piest alive and we didn’t find that. 474 00:25:54,825 --> 00:25:58,621 The first search did not give us any direct information 475 00:25:58,662 --> 00:26:00,915 in relation to where Rob Piest was. 476 00:26:03,417 --> 00:26:05,961 They didn’t find any bodies in the Gacy house, 477 00:26:06,003 --> 00:26:09,298 but they did find things that really didn’t belong there, 478 00:26:09,340 --> 00:26:13,344 such as a class ring with the initials of somebody 479 00:26:13,386 --> 00:26:14,845 that was not John Wayne Gacy. 480 00:26:15,346 --> 00:26:17,973 And they found a variety of pornography. 481 00:26:18,015 --> 00:26:20,393 They found up in the attic some shackles, 482 00:26:20,434 --> 00:26:23,896 and they also found up in the attic under some insulation, 483 00:26:23,938 --> 00:26:27,233 two books, one of which was titled The Gay Love Letters, 484 00:26:27,274 --> 00:26:29,944 and the other book was Pretty Boys Must Die. 485 00:26:29,985 --> 00:26:33,823 These are very, very odd things to have. 486 00:26:33,864 --> 00:26:35,825 In the trash can in the kitchen 487 00:26:35,866 --> 00:26:38,452 they found a film receipt that originated 488 00:26:38,494 --> 00:26:41,205 from Nisson Pharmacy where Rob Piest had worked. 489 00:26:42,456 --> 00:26:43,916 It had no one’s name on it at 490 00:26:43,958 --> 00:26:47,211 all it had was a number on it. So we really had no idea 491 00:26:47,253 --> 00:26:49,422 what the film was about or who it belonged to. 492 00:26:49,463 --> 00:26:51,173 We assumed it probably belonged to Gacy, 493 00:26:51,215 --> 00:26:54,260 but they recovered that just in case. 494 00:26:58,514 --> 00:27:01,392 We found driver’s licenses from two other individuals, 495 00:27:02,727 --> 00:27:04,687 so that was what we found, 496 00:27:04,729 --> 00:27:07,106 but nothing to lead us to Robert Piest, 497 00:27:07,148 --> 00:27:11,152 so we had to leave the house and let Gacy back in. 498 00:27:11,902 --> 00:27:13,612 My job at the time 499 00:27:13,654 --> 00:27:17,992 was to start digging into his past and his company’s past. 500 00:27:19,785 --> 00:27:21,829 Gacy had been married in Iowa. 501 00:27:22,496 --> 00:27:25,958 He had two children out there 502 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,502 at the time that he went to prison 503 00:27:29,170 --> 00:27:32,214 and as soon as he was paroled, he headed back to Chicago. 504 00:27:35,926 --> 00:27:38,971 By checking missing persons reports from the area 505 00:27:39,555 --> 00:27:41,182 and a specific age, 506 00:27:41,223 --> 00:27:43,726 we started seeing that several other people 507 00:27:43,768 --> 00:27:45,686 that had worked for him were missing. 508 00:27:46,979 --> 00:27:48,647 These individuals were young men that were 509 00:27:48,689 --> 00:27:50,149 being reported missing 510 00:27:50,191 --> 00:27:52,860 and have not been seen for several months. 511 00:27:54,195 --> 00:27:56,489 We find out that the driver’s licenses 512 00:27:56,530 --> 00:27:57,865 that were found in his house 513 00:27:57,907 --> 00:28:00,284 seemingly were related to missing persons. 514 00:28:01,202 --> 00:28:02,953 After the first search warrant, 515 00:28:02,995 --> 00:28:06,374 when the police officers brought back the class ring, 516 00:28:06,832 --> 00:28:10,294 which had initials inside of it- J.S., 517 00:28:10,336 --> 00:28:11,712 we were able to find out 518 00:28:11,754 --> 00:28:15,091 this ring belonged to a fellow by the name of John Szyc 519 00:28:16,384 --> 00:28:20,179 and, and then checking with his family, 520 00:28:20,221 --> 00:28:23,432 finding out that, in fact, Szyc is missing. 521 00:28:26,894 --> 00:28:28,854 We would sit there in 522 00:28:28,896 --> 00:28:30,648 the Des Plaines Police Department 523 00:28:30,690 --> 00:28:35,403 and just say, what in God’s name are we sitting on top of? 524 00:28:47,373 --> 00:28:50,668 We saw that Gacy had a long record, 525 00:28:50,710 --> 00:28:53,379 there were red flags all along the way 526 00:28:53,421 --> 00:28:56,465 that for some reason nobody paid attention to. 527 00:28:57,758 --> 00:29:00,886 You know, they say where there’s smoke, there’s fire. 528 00:29:00,928 --> 00:29:04,056 In this case, there was a blaze out of control. 529 00:29:04,849 --> 00:29:06,392 It was in so many different districts 530 00:29:06,434 --> 00:29:10,563 and some were more diligent than others in pursuing it. 531 00:29:11,022 --> 00:29:14,108 I think they did look the other way many times. 532 00:29:14,150 --> 00:29:18,237 But the fact that he got away with it for so long. 533 00:29:19,947 --> 00:29:21,907 Is he entirely to blame? 534 00:29:24,368 --> 00:29:29,874 Or is there something faulty with the system? 535 00:29:32,376 --> 00:29:35,379 Our primary focus, our only focus was watching Gacy. 536 00:29:35,838 --> 00:29:38,799 You’re hoping you’re going to find this kid alive someplace, 537 00:29:38,841 --> 00:29:42,219 you know, whatever it may be that, you know, return him home. 538 00:29:42,261 --> 00:29:46,640 But it was quite apparent, you know, just days into it 539 00:29:47,224 --> 00:29:50,770 that Rob Piest might have been the victim of a homicide. 540 00:29:52,897 --> 00:29:55,066 We felt it very urgent 541 00:29:55,107 --> 00:29:58,819 that we keep an eye on Gacy no matter what, 542 00:29:58,861 --> 00:30:00,488 let’s not lose him. 543 00:30:00,529 --> 00:30:01,947 From the very get-go 544 00:30:01,989 --> 00:30:05,910 We had a team of undercover police officers, 545 00:30:06,452 --> 00:30:10,081 four of them working 12 hour shifts 546 00:30:10,122 --> 00:30:12,249 that were supposed to be tailing him. 547 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:16,879 I start the surveillance 548 00:30:17,463 --> 00:30:19,382 shortly after the first search warrant. 549 00:30:20,216 --> 00:30:22,093 Right away, we’re thinking, hey, you know, 550 00:30:22,134 --> 00:30:24,428 if he’s not being held against his will Rob Piest, 551 00:30:24,470 --> 00:30:26,013 you know, the worst case scenario 552 00:30:26,055 --> 00:30:27,807 is that he’s been killed 553 00:30:27,848 --> 00:30:30,309 and there’s a possibility that there’s more than one victim. 554 00:30:30,351 --> 00:30:31,769 So I’m thinking to myself now, 555 00:30:31,811 --> 00:30:33,813 what am I doing out here by myself? 556 00:30:34,939 --> 00:30:36,482 And I went back that day. 557 00:30:36,524 --> 00:30:38,442 I said, listen, it’s probably a good idea if we grab 558 00:30:38,484 --> 00:30:41,153 one more guy for the night shift to be my partner. 559 00:30:41,737 --> 00:30:45,116 And that’s how my partner, Mike Albrecht became involved. 560 00:30:45,157 --> 00:30:47,451 We weren’t necessarily given any instructions. 561 00:30:47,493 --> 00:30:50,287 We’re just told watch Gacy. I mean, you had a suspect 562 00:30:50,329 --> 00:30:53,833 in a could be a homicide case, so you got to watch him. 563 00:30:53,874 --> 00:30:56,377 The police had focused in on you 564 00:30:56,419 --> 00:30:58,087 as being the suspect in the missing boy. 565 00:30:58,129 --> 00:30:59,380 and eventually, uh 566 00:30:59,422 --> 00:31:00,715 well they were following me around 567 00:31:00,756 --> 00:31:01,882 Following you? 568 00:31:01,924 --> 00:31:03,008 yeah, constantly. 569 00:31:03,050 --> 00:31:04,969 And on December 13th, 570 00:31:05,511 --> 00:31:07,930 I had made a statement to the police department. 571 00:31:07,972 --> 00:31:12,226 And from that date forward, they were had me 572 00:31:12,268 --> 00:31:14,228 under surveillance. The only trouble is, 573 00:31:14,270 --> 00:31:16,689 is that the Mickey Mouse way they were doing it, 574 00:31:16,731 --> 00:31:19,525 they had two cars following me day and night 575 00:31:19,567 --> 00:31:21,652 and they had trouble keeping up with me. 576 00:31:21,694 --> 00:31:23,654 So I used to go out to the car in the morning 577 00:31:23,696 --> 00:31:27,033 and tell them where I was going, so in case they got lost. 578 00:31:27,450 --> 00:31:30,578 because at the time I was doing five construction jobs 579 00:31:31,162 --> 00:31:32,830 in five parts of the city. 580 00:31:33,706 --> 00:31:36,333 So in essence, I was all over the place. 581 00:31:36,917 --> 00:31:40,296 But this was like Keystone Cops trying to follow me around. 582 00:31:40,921 --> 00:31:42,173 Gacy did know he was being surveilled 583 00:31:42,214 --> 00:31:43,507 right from the get-go. 584 00:31:43,549 --> 00:31:47,303 On the very first day of my surveillance 585 00:31:48,054 --> 00:31:49,513 when I was just being relieved, 586 00:31:49,555 --> 00:31:52,683 Gacy came up to us and asked if we were the police, 587 00:31:52,725 --> 00:31:53,851 and we responded, 588 00:31:53,893 --> 00:31:55,269 well, with Des Plaines, you know, 589 00:31:55,311 --> 00:31:57,855 and we’ve been told to keep an eye on you, 590 00:31:57,897 --> 00:31:59,523 and that’s what we’re doing. 591 00:31:59,565 --> 00:32:03,569 So one of us would be parked in front of Gacy’s house 592 00:32:03,611 --> 00:32:05,446 and the other one right on the corner 593 00:32:05,488 --> 00:32:07,698 because if Gacy wanted to go out the back 594 00:32:07,740 --> 00:32:08,866 we’d be able to watch that. 595 00:32:08,908 --> 00:32:12,119 That first night was kind of uneventful, 596 00:32:12,161 --> 00:32:14,163 and we spent most of the night at Gacy’s house. 597 00:32:14,205 --> 00:32:17,083 But then, you know, he started going places at night. 598 00:32:20,127 --> 00:32:22,213 And a third day of the surveillance, 599 00:32:22,254 --> 00:32:25,091 we released the surveillance team about midnight 600 00:32:25,132 --> 00:32:29,095 over at a place called the Moose Lodge in Des Plaines, 601 00:32:29,678 --> 00:32:32,890 and Gacy was in the Moose Lodge at that time. 602 00:32:33,766 --> 00:32:37,228 So Mike and I being in unchartered waters 603 00:32:37,269 --> 00:32:38,813 thought hey, you know 604 00:32:38,854 --> 00:32:42,191 it’d be a lot easier if we would just go inside. 605 00:32:42,233 --> 00:32:44,276 He already knows that we’re here. 606 00:32:44,318 --> 00:32:46,153 So Mike and I both went in the Moose Lodge 607 00:32:46,195 --> 00:32:49,073 and we saw Gacy right away and he saw us walk in. 608 00:32:49,115 --> 00:32:52,326 We sat at a table, maybe three tables away from Gacy. 609 00:32:53,119 --> 00:32:55,413 And a short time later, 610 00:32:55,454 --> 00:32:58,791 the waitress approaches us with two beers and says, 611 00:32:58,833 --> 00:33:01,919 these beers on the gentleman over there pointing to Gacy. 612 00:33:01,961 --> 00:33:03,254 About halfway through our beer 613 00:33:03,295 --> 00:33:06,924 we sent Gacy a beer, so we reciprocated. 614 00:33:07,508 --> 00:33:11,303 And when it was time for him to leave, he got up. 615 00:33:11,345 --> 00:33:12,930 The place was just starting to close up. 616 00:33:12,972 --> 00:33:14,432 And he walks past us and he says, 617 00:33:14,473 --> 00:33:16,267 hey, would you guys like to go to breakfast somewhere? 618 00:33:16,308 --> 00:33:18,394 Right around the corner was a place called 619 00:33:18,436 --> 00:33:20,146 the Pot and Pan Restaurant. 620 00:33:20,187 --> 00:33:23,733 And so we went in there and Gacy went and he sat down 621 00:33:24,442 --> 00:33:26,777 and we were kind of sitting off the corner 622 00:33:26,819 --> 00:33:28,029 a little bit away from him 623 00:33:28,070 --> 00:33:29,947 and started talking back and forth 624 00:33:29,989 --> 00:33:31,615 he says why don’t you guys come on and sit down with me? 625 00:33:31,657 --> 00:33:33,409 So from that point on, 626 00:33:33,451 --> 00:33:35,327 when he went into a public place, 627 00:33:35,911 --> 00:33:38,080 we would go in there with him. 628 00:33:39,582 --> 00:33:42,752 And we get into all kinds of conversations 629 00:33:42,793 --> 00:33:47,757 about what we’re doing, why we’re following him, 630 00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:52,678 and he talks about his business and how successful he is, 631 00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:56,307 and he told us why he hired young kids. 632 00:33:56,348 --> 00:33:58,517 He says, you know, I got to tell you from experience, 633 00:33:58,559 --> 00:34:01,520 I know if I’ve hired a guy that’s been around the block 634 00:34:01,562 --> 00:34:03,814 a few times, it’s hard for me to train him 635 00:34:03,856 --> 00:34:06,484 because he’s used to doing it a certain way. 636 00:34:06,525 --> 00:34:09,278 I hire these young kids that don’t have any experience. 637 00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,864 I can train them right from right from the start 638 00:34:12,281 --> 00:34:14,158 how to do it the way I want it done. 639 00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,827 He was, you know, a real braggart 640 00:34:16,869 --> 00:34:21,207 and he would imply all his contacts that he had 641 00:34:21,248 --> 00:34:22,208 in the city of Chicago. 642 00:34:23,751 --> 00:34:25,669 He had a lot of friends out of Chicago Police Department. 643 00:34:25,711 --> 00:34:29,173 He would just at times give you kind of tidbits of what he had, 644 00:34:29,215 --> 00:34:31,092 about all his contacts. 645 00:34:31,801 --> 00:34:34,345 He never really said, oh, well, they’ve done this for me. 646 00:34:34,387 --> 00:34:37,473 It’s more like planting a seed that if he needs help, 647 00:34:37,890 --> 00:34:39,558 he knows where to go to get it. 648 00:34:40,601 --> 00:34:43,521 Well, because of his political connections, 649 00:34:43,562 --> 00:34:46,899 John felt he had Teflon coating, he could get away with anything. 650 00:34:46,941 --> 00:34:50,361 That’s what I’ve learned is like, oh my God, 651 00:34:50,403 --> 00:34:55,658 there’s a whole tractor trailer load of details 652 00:34:55,700 --> 00:34:59,578 about Chicago politics that I never even considered. 653 00:35:00,705 --> 00:35:02,915 Everything in Chicago was based on politics 654 00:35:02,957 --> 00:35:04,333 back in the 70s. 655 00:35:04,375 --> 00:35:05,751 The mayor was in charge 656 00:35:05,793 --> 00:35:08,754 and he was at the top, top rung on the ladder. 657 00:35:09,171 --> 00:35:10,548 But as it filtered down, 658 00:35:10,589 --> 00:35:13,801 you had all these workers, precinct workers. 659 00:35:13,843 --> 00:35:16,011 Gacy was one of those 660 00:35:16,053 --> 00:35:19,265 foot soldiers out in Norwood Park Township. 661 00:35:20,015 --> 00:35:23,894 Gacy was a politician. He told local Democratic officials 662 00:35:23,936 --> 00:35:26,063 that he wanted to run for office someday. 663 00:35:26,105 --> 00:35:27,398 He was very friendly, 664 00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:32,236 forthcoming hail fellow well met type of guy. 665 00:35:32,278 --> 00:35:34,572 John Wayne Gacy was also Pogo the clown 666 00:35:34,613 --> 00:35:36,323 who loved to make kids laugh. 667 00:35:36,866 --> 00:35:39,368 He was married twice, divorced twice, 668 00:35:39,410 --> 00:35:42,121 and had two children. A Democratic Party 669 00:35:42,163 --> 00:35:44,623 precinct worker with political connections. 670 00:35:44,665 --> 00:35:46,542 His neighbors knew him as Johnny. 671 00:35:46,584 --> 00:35:48,919 He had big parties every year at his house. 672 00:35:49,378 --> 00:35:50,671 There were several groups 673 00:35:50,713 --> 00:35:52,715 of people that went to these parties, 674 00:35:52,757 --> 00:35:54,925 from the neighbors to young men and boys, 675 00:35:54,967 --> 00:35:58,220 employees who thought that maybe he was the key 676 00:35:58,262 --> 00:36:00,264 to a job or money or whatever. 677 00:36:00,306 --> 00:36:04,226 Gacy’s parties were also for the political operatives 678 00:36:04,268 --> 00:36:06,645 of the area of Norwood Park Township. 679 00:36:06,687 --> 00:36:10,775 Gacy would do anything he could to ingratiate himself 680 00:36:10,816 --> 00:36:12,276 with the power structure 681 00:36:12,318 --> 00:36:16,197 because he wanted to rise within the democratic institution 682 00:36:16,238 --> 00:36:17,782 in the city of Chicago. 683 00:36:17,823 --> 00:36:20,326 So he had his picture taken with all these dignitaries. 684 00:36:20,368 --> 00:36:23,037 Rosalynn Carter was in Chicago last May 685 00:36:23,079 --> 00:36:24,705 for a Polish observance. 686 00:36:24,747 --> 00:36:28,042 There was a parade and one of the parade coordinators 687 00:36:28,084 --> 00:36:29,794 was John Wayne Gacy. 688 00:36:29,835 --> 00:36:32,380 Gacy also attended the private reception 689 00:36:32,421 --> 00:36:34,006 where there’s a picture of them meeting 690 00:36:34,048 --> 00:36:37,385 the first lady was taken. The emblem on Gacy’s jacket 691 00:36:37,426 --> 00:36:39,845 indicates he had Secret Service clearance 692 00:36:39,887 --> 00:36:43,349 even though he was convicted of a sex offense in 1968. 693 00:36:44,016 --> 00:36:45,643 There’s that one photograph of you Rosalynn Carter. 694 00:36:45,684 --> 00:36:47,311 Um, yeah Mrs.Rosalynn Carter. 695 00:36:47,353 --> 00:36:49,188 Well, the Secret Service tries to cover it up 696 00:36:49,230 --> 00:36:52,191 and said, well, we don’t know how he got into the picture. 697 00:36:52,233 --> 00:36:54,527 Hell, I was in charge of the reception. 698 00:36:54,568 --> 00:36:56,278 I had to stand at the door and let them know 699 00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:57,571 which politicians were allowed in 700 00:36:57,613 --> 00:36:59,782 and which ones weren’t, the thing it is. 701 00:36:59,824 --> 00:37:02,910 But the uh, the Secret Service wanted to cover up 702 00:37:02,952 --> 00:37:04,161 and make it sound like that 703 00:37:04,203 --> 00:37:06,247 I had no business there. I was cleared 704 00:37:06,288 --> 00:37:07,873 and I was with Secret Service at the time 705 00:37:07,915 --> 00:37:10,167 and setting up the parade route and everything, 706 00:37:10,209 --> 00:37:11,752 because I used to set up the parades 707 00:37:11,794 --> 00:37:13,629 for the Polish alliance. 708 00:37:13,671 --> 00:37:15,756 And then for three years in a row 709 00:37:15,798 --> 00:37:18,718 I had to set up the parades to run. 710 00:37:19,343 --> 00:37:20,636 And, you know, that’s a big feat, 711 00:37:20,678 --> 00:37:23,389 getting 20,000 Polish people 712 00:37:23,431 --> 00:37:25,558 to go in one direction at one time. 713 00:37:28,310 --> 00:37:29,812 A lot of times you’ll go to a story 714 00:37:29,854 --> 00:37:32,356 and say oh I was suspicious of him. 715 00:37:32,398 --> 00:37:33,858 Not in this case. 716 00:37:33,899 --> 00:37:39,655 Gacy used the aura of being politically connected 717 00:37:39,697 --> 00:37:42,950 to deceive people into thinking, you know, 718 00:37:42,992 --> 00:37:44,702 let’s leave this guy alone 719 00:37:44,744 --> 00:37:47,747 because it may come back to haunt us later on. 720 00:37:47,788 --> 00:37:51,542 He manipulated public officials to think he was just a guy 721 00:37:51,584 --> 00:37:53,544 who was on the make politically 722 00:37:53,586 --> 00:37:57,381 and he fooled everybody every step of the way. 723 00:38:04,388 --> 00:38:06,557 When we were following Gacy, 724 00:38:06,599 --> 00:38:10,394 we had to kind of remind each other once in a while 725 00:38:10,436 --> 00:38:12,688 what we were involved in and not get taken in by this guy 726 00:38:12,730 --> 00:38:15,274 because he was a B.S.er and he, very boastful 727 00:38:15,316 --> 00:38:17,860 and try to get your confidence and all that kind of stuff. 728 00:38:17,902 --> 00:38:19,195 He was very likable 729 00:38:19,236 --> 00:38:23,366 and Mike and I are like better kind of, you know, 730 00:38:23,407 --> 00:38:24,867 keep our guard up with this guy. 731 00:38:24,909 --> 00:38:27,453 Even though you have a tendency to put your guard down 732 00:38:27,912 --> 00:38:31,248 because of the way he talked and acted and befriended us. 733 00:38:31,707 --> 00:38:33,584 He acted like such a normal guy. 734 00:38:33,626 --> 00:38:36,128 He says, I don’t know if you guys are following me 735 00:38:36,170 --> 00:38:38,756 because of this missing person that they were asking about. 736 00:38:38,798 --> 00:38:40,883 But I have nothing to do with this kid. 737 00:38:40,925 --> 00:38:42,343 I’ve never seen him. 738 00:38:42,385 --> 00:38:45,179 He says I’ll I’ll help you on the search you know. 739 00:38:45,679 --> 00:38:46,889 But I got to tell you, 740 00:38:46,931 --> 00:38:48,891 I’m not involved with this at all. 741 00:38:49,934 --> 00:38:52,686 Now, he was showing some odd behavior. 742 00:38:52,728 --> 00:38:55,439 You know, personality changes, if you would. 743 00:38:55,481 --> 00:38:56,857 You know, he’d seem real friendly 744 00:38:56,899 --> 00:38:59,318 and then all of a sudden he’d be aggravated 745 00:38:59,860 --> 00:39:02,780 and then he would he would have this 746 00:39:03,948 --> 00:39:06,784 real unusual look on his face, you know, 747 00:39:06,826 --> 00:39:09,912 like almost like a beaten man, you know, 748 00:39:09,954 --> 00:39:13,457 and aggravated scary looking face. 749 00:39:14,125 --> 00:39:15,543 But, you know, we’d get him out of the car 750 00:39:15,584 --> 00:39:16,919 and shake him by the shoulders 751 00:39:16,961 --> 00:39:18,587 and tell him hey if you don’t knock it off, 752 00:39:18,629 --> 00:39:20,297 you know, we’re going to have to arrest you 753 00:39:20,339 --> 00:39:22,550 for reckless driving or something like that. 754 00:39:22,591 --> 00:39:24,593 And then all of a sudden he’d be fine 755 00:39:24,635 --> 00:39:26,303 and he’d be like that for a couple hours 756 00:39:26,345 --> 00:39:28,097 and then he’d go nuts again. 757 00:39:28,139 --> 00:39:30,683 Police have been watching John Gacy’s suburban Chicago 758 00:39:30,725 --> 00:39:32,393 home for the past 10 days. 759 00:39:32,935 --> 00:39:35,855 They became suspicious when 15 year old Robert Piest 760 00:39:35,896 --> 00:39:38,941 disappeared after he allegedly was last seen with Gacy. 761 00:39:38,983 --> 00:39:40,860 We were just so engrossed with this. 762 00:39:40,901 --> 00:39:42,987 I mean, we thought of nothing else. 763 00:39:43,654 --> 00:39:44,989 Nothing in the entire I mean, 764 00:39:45,031 --> 00:39:46,782 it was only a 10 day surveillance, 765 00:39:46,824 --> 00:39:48,784 but I mean, it’s all we lived and breathed. 766 00:39:48,826 --> 00:39:51,662 We didn’t have a thought about anything else. 767 00:39:53,497 --> 00:39:55,249 During this time, the investigators 768 00:39:55,291 --> 00:39:59,628 were interviewing Michael Rossi and David Cram, 769 00:39:59,670 --> 00:40:02,631 who were basically very loyal, longtime employees, 770 00:40:02,673 --> 00:40:04,300 young kids, you know, in their 20s. 771 00:40:04,341 --> 00:40:05,843 Mike Rossi and David Cram 772 00:40:06,218 --> 00:40:08,804 they did odd jobs for him, you know, and helping him 773 00:40:08,846 --> 00:40:10,973 on a construction job and stuff like that. 774 00:40:11,015 --> 00:40:13,476 So they were his workers. They worked for him. 775 00:40:13,893 --> 00:40:15,352 And each time they’d interview them 776 00:40:15,394 --> 00:40:16,979 and they interviewed them multiple times, 777 00:40:17,021 --> 00:40:18,981 they would give just a little more information. 778 00:40:19,023 --> 00:40:22,318 Telling the investigators that they had been in a crawlspace 779 00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:26,030 and been ordered to dig some trenches. 780 00:40:28,449 --> 00:40:30,493 They said Gacy had them 781 00:40:30,534 --> 00:40:33,662 dig trenches down in the crawl space 782 00:40:33,704 --> 00:40:35,664 and the reason for these trenches 783 00:40:36,082 --> 00:40:38,417 ostensibly given to Rossi and Cram 784 00:40:39,126 --> 00:40:43,381 were to make holes to put in drain pipe 785 00:40:44,340 --> 00:40:46,634 Captain Kozenczak and the investigators, 786 00:40:46,675 --> 00:40:48,636 now they’re starting to find out 787 00:40:48,677 --> 00:40:51,347 that there is an odor down in the crawl space, 788 00:40:51,389 --> 00:40:55,226 and Gacy has always put it off to a sewage issue down there. 789 00:40:56,143 --> 00:41:00,481 And when a smell would erupt from the crawlspace, 790 00:41:00,523 --> 00:41:02,024 Rossi and Cram, they were told 791 00:41:02,066 --> 00:41:04,235 to throw lime down to cover the smell. 792 00:41:04,276 --> 00:41:07,697 The subdivision where the Summerdale house is located 793 00:41:07,738 --> 00:41:09,365 is built on a clay field. 794 00:41:09,407 --> 00:41:12,159 And when it rained, the rain would come down from both ends 795 00:41:12,201 --> 00:41:14,995 and would flood from from one house to the other. 796 00:41:15,037 --> 00:41:16,872 The crawlspace would fill up with water. 797 00:41:16,914 --> 00:41:22,169 In 1976, I asked a landscaper, I said, what do you do for 798 00:41:22,795 --> 00:41:26,507 for that sour odor of clay? And he said spread white lime, 799 00:41:26,549 --> 00:41:28,884 just regular masonry lime on the ground. 800 00:41:28,926 --> 00:41:30,386 He said, it’ll sweeten up the clay 801 00:41:30,428 --> 00:41:31,929 and you won’t have that odor. 802 00:41:31,971 --> 00:41:34,432 Sort of like what charcoal does in filtering things. 803 00:41:34,473 --> 00:41:37,226 That’s why the lime was spread in the crawlspace. 804 00:41:37,268 --> 00:41:39,395 How much the lime was spread down there eventually? 805 00:41:39,437 --> 00:41:43,983 Uh, I think seven or eight hundred pounds of it. 806 00:41:45,317 --> 00:41:48,571 We actually went into the crawlspace the first time. 807 00:41:48,612 --> 00:41:50,865 But if you’re looking for a freshly dug grave, 808 00:41:50,906 --> 00:41:52,742 you’re going to look for a mound of dirt. 809 00:41:52,783 --> 00:41:54,452 Well, there was no mounds of dirt there, 810 00:41:54,493 --> 00:41:57,455 so we did didn’t look any further. 811 00:41:58,622 --> 00:42:02,668 But now with Rossi and Cram digging these trenches in there 812 00:42:02,710 --> 00:42:04,295 we’re putting two and two together 813 00:42:04,336 --> 00:42:07,214 or as crazy as he’s starting to act and his background, 814 00:42:07,256 --> 00:42:08,924 you know, 815 00:42:08,966 --> 00:42:11,177 that’s starting to come to the thoughts of these investigators 816 00:42:11,218 --> 00:42:13,721 that maybe he’s got a dead body down there. 817 00:42:23,189 --> 00:42:26,233 The first search warrant was executed on December 13th. 818 00:42:27,026 --> 00:42:31,280 However, what is strange is you had 20 trained officers 819 00:42:31,322 --> 00:42:33,032 that came into that house, 820 00:42:33,074 --> 00:42:35,910 supposedly went down in the crawl space, crawled around. 821 00:42:35,951 --> 00:42:38,037 There was no mounds of dirt. There was no odor. 822 00:42:38,079 --> 00:42:39,705 There was no nothing. 823 00:42:39,747 --> 00:42:42,625 I never feared anybody going down that crawl space. 824 00:42:43,793 --> 00:42:45,086 Now, the team is starting 825 00:42:45,127 --> 00:42:46,962 to put a little bit of pressure on Gacy 826 00:42:47,004 --> 00:42:51,258 and he seems very agitated, so we’re starting to get to him 827 00:42:51,300 --> 00:42:53,052 and we can tell. 828 00:42:53,094 --> 00:42:55,012 When we first started the surveillance, 829 00:42:55,054 --> 00:42:57,973 Gacy seemed to be able to operate like on three 830 00:42:58,015 --> 00:43:01,435 or four hours sleep. But as the investigation went on 831 00:43:01,477 --> 00:43:03,145 and he was becoming more and more worried, 832 00:43:03,187 --> 00:43:05,147 he was getting virtually no sleep. 833 00:43:05,773 --> 00:43:07,316 And it was very visible, 834 00:43:07,358 --> 00:43:10,111 you know, his body language and his posture, everything, 835 00:43:10,152 --> 00:43:11,737 he looked horrible. 836 00:43:11,779 --> 00:43:16,033 He was just transformed from this effervescent guy 837 00:43:16,617 --> 00:43:18,619 to a beaten man. 838 00:43:19,870 --> 00:43:23,833 The police wanted to get a second search warrant. 839 00:43:23,874 --> 00:43:26,293 The main obstacle was there was already a search warrant 840 00:43:26,335 --> 00:43:27,503 that had been executed. 841 00:43:27,545 --> 00:43:29,714 So we needed fresh probable cause. 842 00:43:30,297 --> 00:43:32,091 The probable cause for the second warrant 843 00:43:32,133 --> 00:43:36,011 was an amalgamation of about two or three pieces of evidence. 844 00:43:37,179 --> 00:43:40,516 One was a class ring that Gacy probably should not have had. 845 00:43:41,267 --> 00:43:44,812 Another item of evidence found in the Gacy house 846 00:43:44,854 --> 00:43:47,273 was a photo slip, the kind 847 00:43:47,732 --> 00:43:49,859 when people used to take pictures with film, 848 00:43:49,900 --> 00:43:51,944 not in Rob Piest’s name, 849 00:43:51,986 --> 00:43:55,072 but in the name of a young lady named Kim Byers 850 00:43:55,573 --> 00:43:57,241 who worked at the drug store. 851 00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:02,121 Kim Byers worked at the cash register at the Nisson pharmacy, 852 00:44:02,913 --> 00:44:04,331 and she was at the front of the store 853 00:44:04,373 --> 00:44:06,083 right by the front door. 854 00:44:06,125 --> 00:44:08,919 Kim Byers was going to step outside and have a break, 855 00:44:08,961 --> 00:44:12,006 and she borrowed Rob Piest’s coat. 856 00:44:12,048 --> 00:44:14,175 And just before she went outside, 857 00:44:14,216 --> 00:44:18,012 she took her film and was having the film processed, 858 00:44:18,054 --> 00:44:22,308 got a receipt, put the receipt in the pocket of Piest’s coat. 859 00:44:23,142 --> 00:44:26,187 That’s the same receipt that we found in Gacy’s trash. 860 00:44:26,228 --> 00:44:29,065 So that tied Piest to Gacy’s house. 861 00:44:30,524 --> 00:44:32,485 The third thing, as I recall, 862 00:44:33,152 --> 00:44:36,530 was a conversation I had with the police officers 863 00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:41,535 and they were doing surveillance of Gacy. 864 00:44:41,577 --> 00:44:43,079 It was very, very cold that winter. 865 00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,332 And that’s an important fact because they would 866 00:44:46,374 --> 00:44:49,668 sit right outside of his house in the unmarked police car. 867 00:44:49,710 --> 00:44:53,297 Gacy, who was full of hubris and arrogance, 868 00:44:53,339 --> 00:44:55,966 would sometimes invite them in to use the restroom 869 00:44:56,467 --> 00:44:58,928 and warm up the second surveillance team, 870 00:44:58,969 --> 00:45:01,305 which was Bob Schultz and Ron Robinson. 871 00:45:02,431 --> 00:45:04,934 They pretty much did the same things that we did. 872 00:45:04,975 --> 00:45:06,227 You know, they followed him, 873 00:45:06,268 --> 00:45:09,730 they had conversations with Gacy. 874 00:45:09,772 --> 00:45:11,691 They stayed with him wherever. 875 00:45:11,732 --> 00:45:13,651 This particular day 876 00:45:13,693 --> 00:45:15,820 Gacy says to Schultz and Robinson 877 00:45:16,445 --> 00:45:18,864 he says hey you guys want to have dinner at my place? 878 00:45:18,906 --> 00:45:20,241 And they looked at each other and said 879 00:45:20,282 --> 00:45:22,910 sure. 880 00:45:22,952 --> 00:45:25,955 So they follow Gacy over to his house, 881 00:45:27,081 --> 00:45:30,000 go in there, Gacy is starting to prepare dinner for them. 882 00:45:31,419 --> 00:45:34,505 And while they’re in there Schultz says hey, 883 00:45:34,547 --> 00:45:36,006 I got to go to the bathroom. 884 00:45:36,048 --> 00:45:39,427 So Bob went into the bathroom and what happened then, 885 00:45:39,468 --> 00:45:42,012 while he was in there, the heat kicked on. 886 00:45:45,725 --> 00:45:51,230 And when the heat kicks on, Shultz smells this horrific smell 887 00:45:52,314 --> 00:45:55,317 that he said he could only equate to the county morgue. 888 00:45:57,194 --> 00:45:59,989 He thought that the odor reminded him 889 00:46:00,031 --> 00:46:03,826 of what he had smelled in his experience 890 00:46:03,868 --> 00:46:07,079 as a patrolman, the odor of decaying flesh. 891 00:46:08,706 --> 00:46:13,085 When I heard that, I said, I think we have probable cause. 892 00:46:16,422 --> 00:46:19,258 After I prepared the search warrant 893 00:46:19,300 --> 00:46:21,927 with the police officers from Des Plaines, 894 00:46:22,636 --> 00:46:25,723 it was already getting into the late afternoon, early evening. 895 00:46:26,348 --> 00:46:28,976 So I went home, I had dinner with my grandmother, 896 00:46:29,018 --> 00:46:33,314 went back to my place, fell asleep and all was fine 897 00:46:33,356 --> 00:46:36,484 until about 5:00 in the morning when I received a telephone call 898 00:46:36,525 --> 00:46:39,362 from Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Corkell, 899 00:46:40,696 --> 00:46:43,115 who told me, get your ass out of bed 900 00:46:43,157 --> 00:46:45,034 and over to the police station. 901 00:46:45,534 --> 00:46:47,370 We found bones. 902 00:46:50,456 --> 00:46:51,665 I made several trips 903 00:46:51,707 --> 00:46:53,459 to the house during the excavation. 904 00:46:54,502 --> 00:46:58,214 The stench in there was overwhelming. 905 00:46:59,507 --> 00:47:03,469 The police officers would wear kerchiefs 906 00:47:03,511 --> 00:47:05,429 around their nose and mouth. 907 00:47:07,223 --> 00:47:12,603 And I remember seeing what they put in body bags. 908 00:47:13,688 --> 00:47:16,565 I had seen crime victims before, dead people, 909 00:47:16,607 --> 00:47:19,235 but nothing like this. 910 00:47:20,736 --> 00:47:23,864 In hindsight, everything is very, very clear, 911 00:47:23,906 --> 00:47:25,408 but as you’re going through it, 912 00:47:25,449 --> 00:47:27,910 you’re trying to figure out how could he take victim 913 00:47:27,952 --> 00:47:31,330 after victim from the same streets and not get caught? 914 00:47:31,997 --> 00:47:34,041 And the only answer you come to 915 00:47:34,083 --> 00:47:36,335 is that someone was looking the other way. 916 00:47:36,752 --> 00:47:38,504 This man could have been stopped.