My brother was warped Pennywise killer clown John Wayne Gacy who murdered 33 men – how we missed his deadly intent
THE SISTER of a man who murdered 33 young men was dumfounded when she found out about his horrific killing spree.
Karen Kuzma's brother John Wayne Gacy is deemed one of America's most notorious serial killers after terrorizing the Chicago, Illinois, area from 1972 to 1978.
But no one was more shocked to learn of his vile crimes than Gacy's sister after a police investigation into a missing boy led them to his doorstep.
It was there they eventually found the bodies of 29 teenagers and young men buried beneath his house - before Gacy later admitted to dumping four bodies in the Des Plaines River because he had ran out of room.
Karen sat down with Oprah Winfrey for her talk show in 2010 to talk about their life as kids and the shock she felt to learn her brother was a murderer.
She said their domineering father was an alcoholic who abused his kids and would punish them with a razor strap.
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She said: “My father, on many occasions, would call John a sissy. And he wasn’t a happy drunk — sometimes he would turn into a mean drunk, so we had to always be real careful.”
She said: “John felt like he never lived up to Dad’s expectations."
Prior to his killing spree, Gacy had pleaded guilty to sodomy after two teenage boys accused him of sexual assault.
Gacy lost his first marriage and two children on the day he was sentenced in December 1968 to 10 years at the Iowa State Reformatory for Men at Anamosa. He was paroled after 18 months for good behaviour.
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But he told Karen he was innocent of the allegations - and she believed him.
She said: "I stop and think sometimes that maybe if he hadn't been so believable, maybe the rest of his life wouldn't have turned out like it did."
SMELL UNDER THE HOUSE
Gacy remarried a single mom after he was released and between 1972 and 1978, embarked on his six-year killing rampage.
He tortured, raped and strangled his male victims before disposing of their bodies in a crawl space in their mother's home.
Karen says when Gacy and his second wife moved in, there was always this "musty smell" - but she never suspected anything.
She said: "In later years, he kept saying that there was water standing under the house and he was treating it with lime [and] that's what the mould smell was."
The corpses were found under his home in 1978. He was subsequently convicted of 33 murders and was executed in 1994.
Karen was in a state of disbelief when she found out he'd been arrested again.
She said: "I just sat there and didn't know what to do. I had to talk to my mother.
"We cried and we hugged, and neither of us could believe it because it wasn't the person we knew. He was always good and kind and always taking care of us."
FELT CHEATED
Despite initially admitting the crimes, Gacy recanted his confession and pledged his innocence until he was executed.
Gacy seemed unsure whether to tell Karen what he'd done - but eventually admitted he was guilty of one or two.
She said to him: "Well, then you're guilty of all because you can't kill one and not be guilty".
"I felt kind of cheated in a way because I didn't know part of him."
Gacy, who appeared to be an upstanding member of his Chicagoland community, worked as a part-time clown named Pogo at children's birthday parties during the time of the brutal killings.
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Chilling tapes revealed how Gacy confessed to murdering his victims and explain how he kept their bodies hidden in a crawl space.
A new true-crime docuseries from Netflix, out April 20, called "Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes" delves into the mind of the infamous serial killer clown.
