A Serial Killer, a Receipt, and My Mom: Haunted by the Murder of 33 Boys
My mom’s role in capturing the prolific serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, has haunted me
since I was a child. This summer, I sat down with her after he re-emerged in the news
cycle to get an insight into how he affected her motherhood—and ultimately my own
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My mom first met Gacy on December 11, 1978, a particularly cold evening in suburban Illinois. That night, my mom, then 17, and her friend and co-worker, Rob Piest, were working a shift at Nisson Pharmacy. A large strange man thudded to work a contracting job at the pharmacy. My mom thought he seemed out of place and asked her boss, “Who’s that?” It was slow, typical of a Monday, so Rob spent time restocking shelves and my mom worked the cash register. At some point she developed a roll of film. She had forgotten her jacket that night, so she asked to borrow Rob’s favorite blue parka. Every time the front doors opened, a frigid cold wind would swoop in. So he lent it to her. At around 8 p.m., when his shift was almost over, when Gacy asked to speak with Rob out back about a summer job that would pay him double what he made at the pharmacy, he took his jacket back, went outside, and was never seen again.
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