Read Online John Wayne Gacy by Judge Sam Amirante - Free Book Online
Authors: Judge Sam Amirante
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statement and be done with it. He was very late, but Gacy intended to get to the police department come hell or high water.
Interstate 294, also called the Tri-State Tollway, is actually a bypass. It allows truckers and travelers that are passing through Chicago to avoid using I-94, the actual interstate route, which slicesright through the heart of downtown Chicago. The Tri-State skirts around the city to the west through dozens of densely populated suburbs. The area is much too populated to have the common style of rest stops along the roadway, so the State of Illinois has constructed oasis-style rest stops, which are built over the tollway like a bridge but with restaurants and gas stations and public restrooms. As Gacy screamed under the Hinsdale Oasis, pedal to the metal, a truck was exiting the oasis and entering the highway, but had not picked up full speed. Gacy had to change lanes, normally a simple maneuver; however, black ice had formed on the pavement due the midday thaw and the nighttime hard freeze. The big Oldsmobile began to fishtail. Gacy overcompensated. Suddenly, he was in a free skid. The car hit a snowbank, and it exploded all around him. The car continued to slide fully off the road and landed completely askew in snow, ice, and mud, ten feet from the highway.
“What the fuck else is going to happen tonight?” Gacy screamed at the windshield. “What!”
He wasn’t hurt; he was pissed—totally pissed. Here he was, trying to do the right thing, following through on this asshole cop’s requirement that he show up and tell him the same fucking thing that he had already told him. And now this. What next?
He took a deep breath, got out of the car, and surveyed his predicament. As he walked around the car, with each step he took, his shoes poked through the thin layer of ice atop the snow and plunged into the sloppy mud underneath. What a fucking mess. He was stuck, no question about it—good and stuck.
Gacy went into the trunk and hoisted his spare tire out and put it on the ground in front of the rear drive wheel. He was trying to use this little Chicagoland trick to get traction, but it was futile. The clock was ticking, and his opportunity to get to Des Plaines was slipping away when at about 2:00 a.m., a tollway employee, Dennis Johnson, noticed the disabled vehicle. He pulled up and asked Gacy if he needed a tow truck. At first, Gacy resisted this. Itcost big bucks, and he thought he could get the car out eventually. But upon reflection, he finally agreed, and a tow truck was called. It came twenty minutes later, and the car was winched free from the mud, ice, and snow.
A report of the incident was filed with the Illinois Tollway Authority. It stated that at 2:30 a.m. on December 13, 1978, a 1979 Oldsmobile 98, bearing Illinois plate number PDM 42, was tended to and freed from a spinout at mile marker 29 in the northbound lanes of Interstate 294.
At 3:20 a.m., Gacy presented himself, caked in mud and totally disheveled, at the front desk of the Des Plaines police headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Kozenczak. He was told that the lieutenant had waited as long as he thought was reasonable but then had to leave. Mr. Gacy would have to return in the morning.
3
S O THERE’S NO question about it. It’s true. Mr. John Wayne Gacy left out a few pieces of pertinent information when he called me the first time. What I didn’t know about my new client vastly outweighed what I did know about him. However, and I haven’t mentioned this yet, John Gacy was my first client. He was, actually, my one and only client. Plus, I was intrigued by the puzzle he presented. Needless to say, I took his call quite seriously.
Don’t get me wrong: he wasn’t the very first client that I had ever had in my life. It’s not like I had never seen the inside of a courtroom before. I had. It’s not like I had never represented a person in court before. I had. In fact, I had been living in courtrooms for the past
Interstate 294, also called the Tri-State Tollway, is actually a bypass. It allows truckers and travelers that are passing through Chicago to avoid using I-94, the actual interstate route, which slicesright through the heart of downtown Chicago. The Tri-State skirts around the city to the west through dozens of densely populated suburbs. The area is much too populated to have the common style of rest stops along the roadway, so the State of Illinois has constructed oasis-style rest stops, which are built over the tollway like a bridge but with restaurants and gas stations and public restrooms. As Gacy screamed under the Hinsdale Oasis, pedal to the metal, a truck was exiting the oasis and entering the highway, but had not picked up full speed. Gacy had to change lanes, normally a simple maneuver; however, black ice had formed on the pavement due the midday thaw and the nighttime hard freeze. The big Oldsmobile began to fishtail. Gacy overcompensated. Suddenly, he was in a free skid. The car hit a snowbank, and it exploded all around him. The car continued to slide fully off the road and landed completely askew in snow, ice, and mud, ten feet from the highway.
“What the fuck else is going to happen tonight?” Gacy screamed at the windshield. “What!”
He wasn’t hurt; he was pissed—totally pissed. Here he was, trying to do the right thing, following through on this asshole cop’s requirement that he show up and tell him the same fucking thing that he had already told him. And now this. What next?
He took a deep breath, got out of the car, and surveyed his predicament. As he walked around the car, with each step he took, his shoes poked through the thin layer of ice atop the snow and plunged into the sloppy mud underneath. What a fucking mess. He was stuck, no question about it—good and stuck.
Gacy went into the trunk and hoisted his spare tire out and put it on the ground in front of the rear drive wheel. He was trying to use this little Chicagoland trick to get traction, but it was futile. The clock was ticking, and his opportunity to get to Des Plaines was slipping away when at about 2:00 a.m., a tollway employee, Dennis Johnson, noticed the disabled vehicle. He pulled up and asked Gacy if he needed a tow truck. At first, Gacy resisted this. Itcost big bucks, and he thought he could get the car out eventually. But upon reflection, he finally agreed, and a tow truck was called. It came twenty minutes later, and the car was winched free from the mud, ice, and snow.
A report of the incident was filed with the Illinois Tollway Authority. It stated that at 2:30 a.m. on December 13, 1978, a 1979 Oldsmobile 98, bearing Illinois plate number PDM 42, was tended to and freed from a spinout at mile marker 29 in the northbound lanes of Interstate 294.
At 3:20 a.m., Gacy presented himself, caked in mud and totally disheveled, at the front desk of the Des Plaines police headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Kozenczak. He was told that the lieutenant had waited as long as he thought was reasonable but then had to leave. Mr. Gacy would have to return in the morning.
3
S O THERE’S NO question about it. It’s true. Mr. John Wayne Gacy left out a few pieces of pertinent information when he called me the first time. What I didn’t know about my new client vastly outweighed what I did know about him. However, and I haven’t mentioned this yet, John Gacy was my first client. He was, actually, my one and only client. Plus, I was intrigued by the puzzle he presented. Needless to say, I took his call quite seriously.
Don’t get me wrong: he wasn’t the very first client that I had ever had in my life. It’s not like I had never seen the inside of a courtroom before. I had. It’s not like I had never represented a person in court before. I had. In fact, I had been living in courtrooms for the past
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