Gacy Murders Get "Connected"
Everyone knows serial killer John Wayne Gacy dressed as a clown and entertained block parties during his days of murder.
Most people know he was a democratic precinct captain, ringing doorbells and getting out the vote for the Machine.
But even we didn't know this part of the story:
Most people know he was a democratic precinct captain, ringing doorbells and getting out the vote for the Machine.
But even we didn't know this part of the story:
- It all started when Gacy, a contractor living on the city’s northwest side, regularly picked up young men at Bughouse Square and in Boystown by impersonating a police officer. During the early and mid 1970s he was accused of a series of violent crimes and–possibly because he was a precinct captain with friends in politics, possibly because the crimes were homosexual in nature–was released by police after questioning.
It continued when police from the northwest suburb of Des Plaines, searching for a missing teenager, crossed into Chicago and stumbled on Gacy and his troubled history.
Gacy turned out to have several young people who worked for him living in his house, and things got really messy when one of them turned out to be the grandson of one of the most powerful political figures in Chicago.
Two young men were brought in with Gacy for questioning. They revealed information about the scene at Gacy’s house, and about the crawlspace under it, where Gacy had placed the bodies of his victims.
Three law enforcement officials present at the time told Tracy Ullman that the mother of one of the young men arrived at the Des Plaines police station where he was being interviewed and announced something along the lines of “I am the daughter of Vito Marzullo and I’m here to take my son home.” She demanded that the questioning end, saying a lawyer was on the way.
The attorney who showed up to represent Marzullo’s grandson was none other than Ed Hanrahan, former Cook County state’s attorney.
Marzullo? Hanrahan? We haven't heard these names in decades. They were featured prominently in Mike Royko's book "Boss," and were integral parts of the Machine back in its heyday. If these two were anywhere near this investigation, there are more stories to tell than anyone would believe.
It also explains why no one has been digging up lawns and basements around Elston and Miami for the past 40 years.
It also explains why no one has been digging up lawns and basements around Elston and Miami for the past 40 years.
Labels: crime
posted by SCC at 12:02 AM
64 Comments:
Gacy was also well-known in the Boy's Town area of 023. There was talk on the street among the boys that Gacy was to be avoided as he was "not right."
The Des Plaines PD Missing Persons Section broke the case. Several Det's were talking about their missings. One mentioned that a kid went to see a contractor named Gacy about a job and went missing.
At least 2 other Det's said the same thing. That's when they began to trail Gacy. They sought help from Chicago PD but due to Gacy's political ties they got none. Who knows how many deaths could have been prevented?
Of the Det's that trailed Gacy, the surveillance involved many long hours. Sometimes days on end. The stress lead one of the Det's to an early grave. That is why LEO now have what is known as the "Heart Attack Bill", an acknowledgement of law enforcement stress.
Gacy also worked in other cities. It is unknown if there are victims there.
Read "Killer Clown" by Terry Sullivan.
"... at the time told Tracy Ullman that the mother of one of the young men arrived at the Des Plaines police station where he was being interviewed..."
Wasn't Tracy Ullman that English comedienne that had a show that eventually spawned "The Simpsons"?
WTF?
So the implication is that the first and second generations of Daley Inc. KNEW about the bullshit Gacy was on?
So... How plausible were the rumblings that Gacy was raping and killing boys and young men as early as the late 1950's early 60's?
And the kicker?
Marzullo's GRANDSON???
And the laugher?
Ed Hanrahan was the kid's lawyer?
Whoooooo! Some hot, funky and action filled phone calls got made on that one!
How in hell did Gacy avoid being encased in two or three cubic yards of old fashioned city-mix* somewhere?
*Old Chicago Sidewalk concrete mix.
This shit reads like a ghost story!
Damn... Welcome to Chicago...
Dead men ain't tellin' no tales.
A fraction of what Gacy had been doing over the years had been uncovered...
Was he "protected" until he couldn't be "protected" any more?
We wouldn't be surprised at all.
And everyone was dissing a retired detective of police, Billy D. Billy was one of the best Gang Crimes Specialist in the city in the real police-old gang crimes unit.
We had a million laughs Billy !! You and your small "side-kick" are still legends. To bad Mike' closed, we would have a reunion with all us now retired guys. I could find Sgt R.F.
Stay well Billy, I learned much from all you guys on the team.
R.I.' old partner.
Back in Sept. 1977 a 15 yr old girl named Debra Rosencranz was found in the Schilller Park woods alive but uncounsious, she later died but took a while to identify her. A joint task forced of CPD and other law enforcement agencies were formed and headed than by ASA Terry Sullivan, yes the same Terry Sullivan who later procescuted Gacy. The investigation of this case revealed that she was scene driving in a black olds that day and later that day her body was thrown from a white pick up wrapped in a sheet. Other investgations linked this black to Gacy and an accomplist named Rossi. A theory is that Debra Rosencranz who was pretty much on her own got to know young men and became aware of Gacy and his activities. Oh yes, this victim was killed with a contractors roof hammer and Gacy was a contractor. The task forced got dissolved over night with many investigative questions not resolved . The girls body was found only less than a ten minute ride from Gacy. Debra Rosencranz fit the profile of many of Gacy's victims but was female. The case belonged to Schiller Park because of where the victim died.
Retired CPD
Sheriff dart should be more worried about the on going crime against our second amendment rights.
Tracy Ullman, who's working on a documentary on Miami-Elston, will be making a public appearance this afternoon in Portage Park with one of the attorneys who handled Gacy's death penalty appeal. We should be hearing some interesting details about Gacy's travel records.
Details on the talk here: http://johnwaynegacynews.com/2013/02/24/24-tracy-ullman-appearance-march-4-with-gacy-arresting-officer-and-attorney-this-monday-in-portage-park/
I have the same name, but I'm no comedienne (although I do love a laugh...). You should read page 282 of Terry Sullivan's book, Killer Clown: "Edward V. Hanrahan, the Cook County’s State’s attorney… immediately sought immunity for his client [the grandson]. I had worked for him. We went back and forth for months. In the end, Hanrahan relented, mostly, I think, because he was willing to trust me when I personally promised him that we stick to the questions he and I already discussed and that we’d protect [the grandson] as best we could on cross-examination.”
While working the old Area 6 Homicide-Sex unit during the 1970's, our dicks noticed a very conspicuous auto regularly cruising at night on Broadway and Clark St. No probable cause existed for a stop, let alone an arrest. It was a big black Oldsmobile with twin spotlamps.
It wasn't until after his December 21, 1978 arrest that we learned that the driver and lone occupant was none other than serial murderer John Wayne Gacy.
If you can understand gallow's humor, one homicide detective later penned some widely-circulated prose that began with "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the crawlspace..."
This all grandstanding by Tom Dart.
Gacy was pure evil.
If I remember correctly, Robert Piest was just an innocent kid who happened to run into Gacy in a drug store and asked about a job. He disappeared while his mother was waiting for him in their car parked outside.
Years later, Robert's older brother Kenneth needed a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia. There was no eligible matching donor in Robert's surviving family and Kenneth passed away. So the family may well have lost both their sons to Gacy.
Gacy was put down, but his evil survives him. The people sitting on evidence of additional murders are complicit after the fact. They need to man up and put this evil to rest.
I think Rudy went to the SAO, VT
Anonymous said...
Wasn't Tracy Ullman that English comedienne that had a show that eventually spawned "The Simpsons"?
3/04/2013 12:33:00 AM
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LOL! That's the first thing I thought of, too...!
Gacy was a precinct captain and was well connected. You know if he got caught up in something all he had to do was drop names or make a call to his clout to smooth things over with the CPD- they wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. If DesPlaines PD hadn't pursued this, that sadistic fk would still be free and living on top of a graveyard full of victims. His criminal behavior started back when he lived in Iowa, before he even moved to Chicago. He raped a young man out there and got jail time for it. A common trait among serial killers are early crimes involving sexual assaults, usually beginning in their teens. Given that fact, it amazes me how lax our court system is in regards to offenders with this kind of background. The sex offender registry is a joke; offenders can't live near schools or parks, but they can live in an apartment building full of kids or right next door to a family with children. I was assigned to do some residential checks on a few of these registered pedophiles and the clueless parents with children are living right on top of one. Unreal.
And where is Marzullo's grandson today? There still are survivors of Gacy out there. I used to work in 023 and met a couple of what we called "Fruit Hustlers" back then who had actually dated Gacy and survived. I am retired now and came across one working at Whole Foods, the guy is now about 50. All of these survivors should be interviewed because Youth and SIU dropped the ball on Gacy, or they threw the game. If you will recall an unusual number of those SIU guys ended up with gold braids or lieutenant bars. McCotter, Christian, Kirk and others. Did they get promoted because they kept their mouths shut?
You think maybe the kid could have been some sort of accomplice.
Fits the profile
The protecting of a deviate like Gacy by the "Democratic Party" is evil. And the evil grew to the point that the "old Democratic Party" was fully infiltrated by socialists, communists, marxists, and today you have the "new Democratic Party," which must be aptly referred to as the "Socialist-Democratic Party."
Call them what they are...take command of the language of the left. oboma and his party members are Socialist-Democrats. Shine some light on these cockroaches and force them out into the open. And if you vote for any democrat, you are voting for a socialist. Understand this...is socialism the ideology y-o-u support? If not, and you want to take this country back from socialist oboma and his push to destroy the Constitution, our freedom and liberty, check out the Tea Party Patriots, or any Tea Party organization. They support Conservative candidates. Support them with your donations and your time. Conservatives will support the Constitution, our freedoms and liberty. Republicans cannot be trusted to do the same, under the leadership of Boehner and McConnell and the old bulls who wish to keep their power, while professing to be Republicans In Name Only...Rino's. Until the Republican Party alligns itself with Conservative candidates, with Conservative politicians who now hold office, we must support our only hope for this country, and it is the Conservative candidate. Check out the names of these Conservatives politicians in office:, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee. True conservatives and worthy of support. Wise up, Republicn Party. We the People do not want politicians who lean to the left, who are more "moderate." We want our country back, and your candidates are not dedicated to this goal. Vote Conservaive and win this country back from the left.
Hind-sight is always 20/20, but it seems either a few on the CPD were asleep at the switch; just collecting a check or Gacy had some kind of clout waving investigators off.
Des Plaines police evidently got less then enthusiastic cooperation from the CPD.
Two survivors, Jeffery Ringnall & Robert Donnelly, told the CPD of the Homosexual torture at the hands of Gacy.
Donnelly's accusations were discounted as a spat between two consenting adults given Gacy's explaination of the events (Dahlmer did the same with one of his victims who escaped in to the street and flagged down some MPD).
It took Ringnall tracking Gacy's identity down, rather then CPD which is rather remarkable. Ringnall testified there was another man present during his torture.
One of the parents of one of the missing children is reported to have pleaded to CPD many, many, many times to look more closely at Gacy.
CPD was apparently slow on the uptake to look in to Gacy's background and learn of Gacy's Iowa sodamy conviction.
It's surprising more attention wasn't paid to Gacy, given the number of people who worked for Gacy who disappeared (some were homeless but others were not).
I don't say CPD as a whole when I say CPD and the above points above are only what I have read.
If true, it had to be another living hell for the surviving victims, their family and the conscientious investigators related to the case.
Perhaps, sometimes even when you do everything right in something like this, it can go wrong for too long.
It's so evil, I hope the facts come out.
-not a cop
John Wayne used to get a pass in 020 and 023 all the time.
Politically whacked, flipped a Sheriff button out and a prominent Jaycee.
The DesPlaines PD were the real heroes in this sad caper.
Ask some old timers about the shake up in missing persons!Every missing being handled by CPD was being shit canned.Relatives were routinely fed bullshit lies"We tracked your kid to Florida,no he doesn't want to come back or talk to you".Some supervisors including the then commander were dumped after the"solved"missings were found in Gacy's basement.
There were always rumors that one of the supervisors was running interference for his buddy.The rumors had them both socializing and belonging to the same political cliques as well as other similar interests....I won't name the"boss"because there never was PROOF of any malfeasance,but something sure smelled rotten there.
The chicago machine corrput democrats have turned a blind eye on a lot of things. The machine is no doubt the most corrupt organization in America's history. Is there anyone out there that still thinks that the Vaneko incident wasn't covered up? From the CPD to the ASA's there is no way they would fuck with a daley crime family member.
Under the crime machine we all have to pray that none of our loved ones is a victim tangled up with a machine friend. You will get no service and be forgotten through the cover-up. With that scum daley gone we hope for better times.
God would it be nice to see Daley get his. And if not, I will settle for one of his friends or family that have all played dirty and got rich in chicago ocorrupt politics. Unreal how not one daley has ever got pinched.
There is some much BS on this post that a manure farmer would get jealous.
BOY, this is a stinker that won't stop stinkin'. Still going from the last century.
"How in hell did Gacy avoid being encased in two or three cubic yards of old fashioned city-mix* somewhere?"
3/04/2013 01:26:00 AM
Better that he be left loose to kill 100 ordinary kids -- sucking them in with "construction helper jobs" and stuff -- rather than embarrass one hooked-up family.
There.
A "contractors roof hammer"? What the hell is that? And I've been in the trades for 30 years old timer, so don't try to baffle me with any bullshit.
Finding a dead body 10 minutes from Gacy's residence? About a quarter million people live within 10 minutes of Gacy's residences, including each residence being 10 minutes from the other residence.
Put the bottle down and back slowly away from the bar.
More bullshit. Tracking down Gacy ghosts is what the former head of CCSA special pros gets paid to do full time now by Dart. What a circus. Look at the other goofy stuff on that website. I don't care if Dorsch was CPD or not. This is for weirdos.
A "contractors roof hammer"? What the hell is that? And I've been in the trades for 30 years old timer, so don't try to baffle me with any bullshit.
Yes, there is such a thing. Obviously you are not a roofer....
Google it and you shall find....
If you can understand gallow's humor, one homicide detective later penned some widely-circulated prose that began with "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the crawlspace..."
3/04/2013 09:10:00 AM
The man with the extraordinary moustache and the white Saturday Night Fever suit?
I grew up with the older brothers of one of Gacy's victims, Johnny Szyc. He was identified by his High School Class ring as the body was too decomposed for identification.
Sgt. Bruce Rapa (RET)
Hey 1014hrs. you are a complete and total imbecile. Those names you mention like you know something did not come into SIU until years later. None of them had anything to do with Gacy. Go back to eating your cornflakes laced with Bushmills.
My Brother was best friends with Robert Piest when he dissapeared & I know another guy whose Brother fell into Gacy's clutches; both middle class boys going to Maine West High School. How Gacy could do what he did for so long given all the fingers pointing at him makes my skin crawl. How many lives were forever changed by people looking the other way because he was "connected"? Thousands? Tens of thousands??
No digging on Miami Ave... but only after a he's long retired, a detective recalls seeing JW Gacy milling about the night.
Hmmm. Will a retired detective recall anything about RJ Vanecko 20 years from now?
Nah.
To Area 6 Dick (RET) No probable cause to stop black olds with twin spotlamps. 1978 NO PROBABLE CAUSE??? You got to be kidding me. I had 30 years on the job and NEVER heard them called spotlamps. Never made a stop that I didn't have PROBABLE cause.
Gacy must have had an accomplice. Most of the victims were strong young men, and I can't believe that he alone overpowered and restrained them. Someone was there while all this was going on and knows something. He could not run a mortuary under his house without help. Gacy was no fit mountain man who could throw some 6'0 180lb man over his shoulder- handcuffed or not
Understand this...is socialism the ideology y-o-u support? If not, and you want to take this country back from socialist oboma and his push to destroy the Constitution, our freedom and liberty, check out the Tea Party Patriots, or any Tea Party organization. They support Conservative candidates.
Tea Party doesn't mean a thing until we restore the integrity of our voting system. Anyone who thinks they won the elections in 2008 & 2012 fairly better wise up quick.
We outnumber them, but they outsmarted us.
I had an encounter with Gacy back in late 1977, about a year before he abducted Robert Piest in Des Plaines and was caught by their PD.
I was in HS, working at a gas station in Mt. Prospect right along NW Highway under the water tower, place called Schimming Oil. It's now occuped by a block of townhouses.
A heavyset guy in a black sedan, an Olds, came in for gas and was wearing a windbreaker with the standard logo for a fire department on the left chest, can't recall seeing the name of the department.
As I was filling up his car, I noticed he was looking at me strange, and I also noticed that his car was equipped with a cheesy setup on the headboard behind the rear seat, a couple of those types of lights that you see on construction zone horses, only with a red lens instead of amber.
I made note of it, because we were in the suburbs, and the FD logo on his chest I'm sure was from a suburban dept., and out in the burbs firemen used blue flashing lights when responding to a call, either if they were off duty or volunteers which was still common. No fireman would ever have such a jury rigged setup in his car. Both my boss at the gas station and a friend's brother, both volunteers at the time, had the blue flashing lights in their vehicles. Down in the city, of course, blue lights always meant the police, but I knew about the difference.
I wasn't able to make the connection to Gacy when he was first arrested a year later, but about 4-5 years after his arrest and conviction, I saw a picture of the POV he drove, the black Olds, and everything clicked.
I wouldn't be surprised if, along with all of the police paraphenalia the found among his belongings after his arrest, they also found that windbreaker and those red lens lights that he had hooked up in the olds.
Kind of spooky for me when I came to the realization, that Gacy was out trolling that night, especially since I was young (16) and fit the profile for his victims.
For weirdos and the families who still want to know where their kids got to maybe.
A "contractors roof hammer"? What the hell is that? And I've been in the trades for 30 years old timer, so don't try to baffle me with any bullshit.
Yes, there is such a thing. Obviously you are not a roofer....
Google it and you shall find....
-=-=-=-
Googled it. Found roofing contractors. Found roofing hammers, of which we have several. No "contractors roof hammer." The two adjectives are completely unrelated, as is this "old timer's" story.
5:31 PM
Re: Gacy's spotlamps on Oldsmobile and probable cause.
WHAT'S YOUR POINT?
This all grandstanding by Tom Dart.
3/04/2013 09:21:00 AM
Yes, he's an idiot. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case CLOUT helped a killer keep killing.
"Kind of spooky for me when I came to the realization, that Gacy was out trolling that night, especially since I was young (16) and fit the profile for his victims."
3/04/2013 05:53:00 PM
...and I knew someone who knew victim Robert Piest.
What's that called? "The seven degrees of remove," i.e. the whole world is closer than you think to everyone knowing each other?
This is one of those awful things that just keeps echoing. Like other disasters we've had here -- the Eastland, OLA, and others that are strangely almost forgotten.
A family member experienced a near-miss like this once -- they were approached in a certain way by a person of a certain description running a certain story. They had mentioned it in passing, and we thought not much of it -- but there was something creepy that still kept it in your mind.
Then a story broke in the paper, someone had been killed and an arrest made, it was the same guy.
When asked again, the family member said, "No, no, that wasn't him." That's OK, they want to have protective reaction, but I gut-knew it was the same guy.
>shudder<
"Found roofing hammers, of which we have several. No "contractors roof hammer."
3/04/2013 08:05:00 PM
OK, OK. Maybe everyone is trying to say the same thing. "Victim killed with a hammer of a certain type that Gacy had? Not the more common types, but one that left a distinctive, distinguishing mark?"
Is Vito Marzullo related to Frank Marzullo?, former Berwyn Police Goon. Talk about a piece of shit.
Probably no way to find out all these years later, but it would be interesting to know how many people were registered to vote listing Gacey's home address as there residence.
Not because of the number of dead bodies at his address, but because Gacey was a precint captain.
That might have been his juice. He was good for hundreds, perhaps multiple hundreds of votes.
Terry Sullivan is a stroke. He made a name for himself off a case that any half wit John Marshall law school grad could of prosecuted. Hey Terry, time to do away with the comb over.
Ask the man with the hair.
if you read the books....some of those kids actually dug their own graves..."buried dreams" was as good as "killer clown".
This old timer was on the scene and part of the investigation, read the reports, ME reports, ME photo's, cause of death, we even found a duplicate roofers hammer that matched the victims lacernations and blunt trauma that caused her death. The investigation continued for over a month and than CPD took us off the case. The car observed matched a vehilce that Gacy owned, a dark chevy. I was in Gacy's basement, where you rookie ?
Ask some old timers about the shake up in missing persons!
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A missing person is not a crime.
i was approached by JWG a couple of times as a teen to do odd jobs and yard work. he was turned down twice and never saw him again when my mother intervened the second time. i lived with my folks across the street from the 'famous for nothing' restaurant at 25/western.
to say that there was a connection between don vito and JWG is not too far fetched. both ate at febo's
This old timer was on the scene and part of the investigation, read the reports, ME reports, ME photo's, cause of death, we even found a duplicate roofers hammer that matched the victims lacernations and blunt trauma that caused her death. The investigation continued for over a month and than CPD took us off the case. The car observed matched a vehilce that Gacy owned, a dark chevy. I was in Gacy's basement, where you rookie ?
=-=-=-
I was building houses in unincorporated Norwood Park Township. And as you proved my point, "roofing hammer" is different from the alleged "contractors roof hammer" that the original poster attempted to use to connect Rosencranz to Gacy, a
"contractor."
LEarn the terminology if you're goingto pretend to do police work.
McCotter, Christian, Kirk and others. Did they get promoted because they kept their mouths shut?
And thw cmdr of Youth was Pat Clark ?
LEarn the terminology if you're goingto pretend to do police work.
3/05/2013 03:04:00 PM
Calm down Sparky.No ones doubting your trade wisdom.I knew immediately that the original poster meant a hammer used for roofing.You act as if you were accused of being Gacy's apprentice or something.
Anonymous said...
Ask some old timers about the shake up in missing persons!
----------
A missing person is not a crime.
3/05/2013 07:30:00 AM
WTF??Who said it was??Reading comprehension is obviously not your strong point.
"...I had an encounter with Gacy."
Standard north side encounter?
Johnny Szyc was my cousin. R.I.P. Johnny 1958-1977
http://s1285.photobucket.com/user/deepquarry/media/IsthisthesameRossi1987ILamp2010NY_zps89796080.jpg.html
You be the judge,is this the same Rossi? I say it is. I waited 2 yeras for this photo.
-Felix Francis Marcus -eyewitness to Deep Quarry mass murders.
The article stated "Two young men were brought in with Gacy for questioning". Nowhere did this article state that ALL of Gacys employees and friends were brought in for questioning. Every one of them. This is mentioned in many documents over the years. Also missing form current media coverage is the fact that MORE THAN 2 people were down in that crawl space, not just the 2 that current stories keep dwelling on. Has the media lost track of what actually went on 35 years ago? I fear no truths but I fear an untruthful government. -Felix Francis Marcus shadowreports link none.
To the last comment: two young men who lived with Gacy at periods when he as on his killing spree were questioned, that's not the same as all his employees and friends being questioned, these men were suspected accomplices.
To Felix: I think it's the same man. Especially when you campare the first recent picture and the 78 picture. Seems to be the same nose, same shape of eyes, same distance between the eyes, same distance between the nose and mouth. Why do we have a picture of the older Rossi?.
Cristina
Christina,
I am not 100% certain who was brought in and who wasn't. I only know that the papers reported that "all of Gacy's employees were rounded up and brought in for questioning". Cram was at my house a few times during the mid 80's, plus I played softball on weekends with the guy. I have strong investigatable reasons to believe Cram continued murdering during Gacys incarceration. Cram was able to make murders appear as suicides. I have names and I told the police about this however they did nothing, or so it seemed. The third guy (unnamed for now) I knew for about 8 years. As for Michael J. Rossi he moved east after the trial despite what the papers later said, I remember him well both with and without Gacy during the late 70's.
-Felix Francis Marcus
Political corruption is evident in every country because politics is necessarily a dirty game played by dirty people, but it is perhaps more evident in the USA than any other civilized country in the world. That some woman can turn up at the police station and demand anything is surprising, but that she can demand the return of a suspect is ridiculous.I think it is high time the rest of the John Wayne Gacy case was made public. I also happen to think that there should be a public memorial to the murdered boys, why has this not happened. Does America bow to a gang of thugs on this one as well. It is a disgrace that these children are not remembered,it paints a picture of a country more interested in the criminal than the honest citizen, and in the same way it is a disgrace that John Gacy survived for fifteen years on death row, longer than his last victims entire life on this vile planet.
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