Gacy marks 100th state execution Illinois death row

State executions date back to 1928; before then, counties executed criminals

Springfield -- When John Wayne Gacy was sentenced to die 14 years ago, he joined five other killers on death row.

Those five murderers still are waiting for a date with the executioner as state officials prepare to kill Gacy on May 10 at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill.

Gacy, ranked among the notorious killers in American history, would become the 100th person executed in Illinois since 1928, when the state took control of executions. Before that, county officials executed criminals. Between 1928 and 1962, the state electrocuted 98 people. The executions stopped when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down capital punishment. That decision was reversed in 1976, and Illinois officials reinstated the death penalty the following year.

Thirteen years went by before anyone was executed in Illinois, and that only happened when Charles Walker of Mascoutah dropped his appeals. Walker died by injection on Sept. 12, 1990. Had Walker continued to appeal his case, he probably would be alive, sitting on death row along with 154 other killers, the latest count from the Illinois Department of Corrections. Barring any last-minute delay, Gacy will be the second person to die by injection, and the first killer whose appeals have run out since the reinstatement of the death penalty. His attorneys are still seeking to block the execution.

John Szabo was the first person sentenced to death under the state's new death penalty. Szabo, 36, has avoided execution since 1979 through various legal challenges. He was convicted of four murders in Will County. Court challenges also have kept alive George Delvecchio, James P. Free Jr., Kenneth Allen and Hernando Williams, the other killers sentenced to death before Gacy.

Gacy is among 60 killers on death row at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester.