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Gacy killed dozens, and maybe was 'good for more than 33'

By Terry H. Burns

His U.S. map was full of pins where he'd been; Illinois might not have been the only victim

Chicago -- Serial killer John Wayne Gacy was convicted of systematically murdering 33 young men and boys from the early to late 1970's. No one in this country ever has been convicted of killing so many people. Is it beyond reason to believe that America's most horrific killer might has murdered other?

"I personally believe he killed a lot more than 33 people," said Joseph Kozenczak, a former Des Plaines police detective who headed the Gacy investigation. "I thin there are other victims out there, but we might never know," he added.

Part of the problem is that Gacy at first admitted to his role in the killings, but since has denied his part in all but one. The killing, Gacy told authorities, involved a boy he picked up at a bus station and murdered after the teen-ager come after him with a kitchen knife.

That boy was one of 27 later found buried in the crawl space under Gacy's Norwood Park Township home near Des Plaines, IL. "I think there are missing kids out there, and no one has ever tried to link them to Gacy," said Terry Sullivan, one of several former Gacy prosecutors.

Even 14 years after the fact, Sullivan admits that the most frustrating aspects of the case are its "enormity" and "probably never knowing whether there were any more victims out there." "There's a real possibility there are," he added. Others are reluctant to link Gacy to other murders. "I don't think it would fit his pattern," said Steven Egger, professor of criminal justice at Sangamon State University and an expert on serial killers.

"He started killing when he got to Chicago because he had a base and a comfort zone, his home," Egger said. Although he insists that Gacy's killings were confined to the Chicago area, Egger admits that it's not "beyond the realm of possibility" that other victims exist. Other officials contend that more victims might exist because Gacy lived and worked in various cities across the country before settling down in the Chicago suburbs.

Gacy not only lived in Iowa -- where he served a prison sentence for sodomy -- but spent a brief time in Springfield and several East Coast cities. "Serial killers always travel a lot, and I can't see where Gacy would be the exception," Kozenczak added. Especially intriguing to prosecutors and investigators was a large United States map discovered in a room that Gacy used as an office in his suburban home.

The map was littered with colored pins showing the towns were Gacy had lived or worked through the years. "There were pins all over the place," recalled Robert Ressler, former head of the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and an expert on serial killers.

Although Ressler said that, during his conversations with Gacy, the accused killer has denied any link between the map and other killings, "I think Gacy's good for more than 33."