Following John Wayne Gacy’s arrest and confession in December 1978, investigators began excavating a 28-by-38-foot crawl space inside the Killer Clown’s Norwood Park Township residence, revealing 26 bodies buried in shallow graves.
Each body was assigned an identifying number, and the area was sectioned off to ensure a systematic recovery.
The victims were predominantly young males, many of whom had been reported missing in the Chicago area.
In addition to the bodies found in the crawl space, three more were discovered elsewhere on Gacy’s property, and four others were recovered from the Des Plaines River, bringing the total number of known victims to 33.
The initial identification efforts were hindered by the technological limitations of the time.
In the early 2000s, with advancements in DNA analysis, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, in collaboration with forensic experts, began re-examining the cases.
This renewed effort led to the identification of three victims: William Bundy, identified in November 2011 through DNA testing; James Haakenson, identified in July 2017 using DNA analysis; and Francis Wayne Alexander, identified in October 2021 through forensic genealogy.
Despite these efforts, five victims—#10, #13, #21, #26, and #28—remain unidentified.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office continues to seek information to identify these individuals and encourages anyone with information about missing males between 1970 and 1979 to contact them.
John Wayne Gacy was sentenced to death on March 13, 1980.
Although his execution was initially scheduled for June 2, 1980, various appeals and legal challenges extended the process for nearly 14 years.
On May 10, 1994, the infamous “Killer Clown” was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois.
