Murder of Timothy McCoy

Timothy Jack McCoy (May 14, 1955 – January 3, 1972) was an American murder victim from Omaha, Nebraska. He is the first known victim of American serial killer and sex offender John Wayne Gacy, who murdered, raped and tortured at least 33 young men and boys between 1972 and 1978. He was murdered by Gacy on January 3, 1972, in Chicago, Illinois, and was buried in the crawl space of his home. McCoy's corpse was not found for nearly seven years until December 1978, where his body along with several others were recovered and was conclusively identified on May 9, 1986, via dental records, 14 years after his death.

Prior to his identification, McCoy was known as the Greyhound Bus Boy, which was in reference to the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Chicago, Illinois, where he first encountered Gacy and eventually disappeared. After his identification, his remains (which were buried under an unmarked gravestone) were returned to his family in Glenwood, Iowa.

Background
Timothy Jack McCoy was born on May 14, 1955, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. McCoy had travelled the country for the majority of his life, living in the states of Iowa, Nebraska, Florida and California. McCoy was a fan of rock music, with his favorite album being Cosmo's Factory by Creedence Clearwater Revival. He had numerous cousins on his mother's side in various parts of the country, with one of his cousins, Jeffrey Billings, describing McCoy as "one of them guys that, when you were around him, he was happy, he'd make you laugh" and adding that "He always had something to say." McCoy had also apparently worked as a forklift operator at Blue Star Foods Inc. nearby Council Bluffs. His parents, Jack McCoy and Susie Study split in the early 1970s.

For Christmas 1971, McCoy (along with one of his aunt's sons) visited his cousins in Michigan and spent the Christmas holidays there. A few days later, his cousins and their parents dropped him off at the Capital Area Multimodal Gateway in East Lansing, with McCoy promising to call back once he returned to his aunt's house in Omaha. This is the last time McCoy's family would hear from him.

Disappearance and murder
McCoy arrived in Chicago, Illinois, on January 2, 1972. His bus to Iowa was not scheduled to depart until noon of the next day, which gave him some time to spend in Chicago. He then stumbled upon a man named John Wayne Gacy, who offered to drive him around the city and give him a sightseeing tour after McCoy told him his bus wasn't due for some hours, which he obliged to. According to Gacy's account, after their trip, Gacy drove McCoy to 8213 West Summerdale Avenue in Norwood Park Township, which was where his ranch-style house was located, with Gacy promising McCoy that he could spend the night at his house and be driven to the bus station in the morning so he could catch his bus. Gacy said that him and McCoy drank alcohol together and he also claimed that the two performed oral sex on each other, despite the fact that McCoy was straight, but it remains truly unknown whether this had actually happened or whether this was consensual. Afterwards, Gacy said he felt tired and they both went to sleep separately.

In the early hours of January 3, 1972, Gacy claimed to have awoken to find McCoy holding a kitchen knife walking towards his bed. According to Gacy, he jumped from his bed and charged at McCoy, trying to grab the knife. McCoy held up the knife to protect himself as Gacy reached for his wrist, which accidentally cut Gacy's arm. He said that after his arm was slashed, he was "no longer the sick individual who was physically weak" and "I felt ten times stronger than I ever was before." Gacy said he grabbed McCoy and threw him against the wall, which was followed by McCoy kicking Gacy in the stomach, which doubled him over. Gacy remembered saying: "Motherfucker. I'll kill you." Gacy then wrestled McCoy to the floor and stabbed McCoy several times in the chest. As McCoy lay dying, Gacy washed the bloody knife in the bathroom and headed into the kitchen, where he saw McCoy's supposed making of breakfast; he had set the table for two and intended to walk into Gacy's room to wake him while absentmindedly carrying the knife. McCoy eventually died of his stab wounds; he was 16 years old.

Aftermath


After his death, McCoy's body was placed in the crawl space of Gacy's home and because Gacy's mother was visiting later that same day, he walked around his house checking for blood stains he may have missed. He later dug a shallow grave in the crawl space and buried McCoy's remains there, later covering his grave with a layer of concrete. Between 1974 and 1978, Gacy would go on to murder at least 32 more victims and buried 25 of the victims in the crawl space along with McCoy's body; he was Gacy's first known victim. He evaded capture from the police for six years until his arrest in December 1978.

On January 3, 1972, the same day McCoy was killed, his aunt went to the bus depot in Omaha to pick him up only to see no sign of him, despite the fact the bus had arrived on schedule from Chicago. As the year went on, McCoy's family began growing increasingly concerned as they had not heard anything from him at all. Therefore, his father, Jack, hired a private investigator in Chicago. McCoy's disappearance was mysterious to his family, as he'd never been known to run away from home. In March 1973, McCoy's grandfather had also passed away in Iowa. When McCoy failed to show up to the funeral, his family lost all hope that he would ever return.

Discovery


McCoy's body remained undiscovered for nearly seven years. However, after a 15-year-old boy named Robert Piest disappeared in December 1978, the Des Plaines Police did a check of John Wayne Gacy's criminal background and found out that Gacy had an outstanding battery charge in Chicago and had previously been imprisoned in 1968 in the state of Iowa for the sodomy of a then 15-year-old boy named Donald Voorhees Jr., son of Donald E. Voorhees, in 1967, five years before Gacy murdered McCoy. As police suspected Gacy may be holding Piest hostage in the same house McCoy died in years prior, the Des Plaines Police obtained a search warrant on December 13, 1978, to no avail, but they did find suspicious items, leading them to confiscate Gacy's vehicles and put Gacy under surveillance.

On December 15, Des Plaines investigators obtained further details of Gacy's battery charge, learning Jeffrey Rignall had reported that Gacy had lured him into his car, then chloroformed, raped and tortured him before dumping him in Lincoln Park months ago. In an interview with Gacy's former wife the same day, they learned of John Butkovich's disappearance; he was killed by Gacy in 1975. Four days later, on December 19, investigators began compiling evidence for a second search warrant for Gacy's house. The same day, Gacy's lawyers filed a $750,000 lawsuit against the Des Plaines police; the hearing for the suit was scheduled to take place on December 22. On December 21, the Des Plaines Police were granted a second search warrant. After police informed Gacy of their intentions to search his crawl space for the body of Piest, Gacy denied the teenager was buried there, but confessed to having killed in self-defense a young man whose body was buried under his garage, whom he would later identify as Butkovich. Gacy was arrested the very same day, and McCoy's body along with the 25 other victims stored in his crawl space were unearthed over the next week, with three others also being unearthed elsewhere on his property.

Investigation
McCoy was the ninth victim of Gacy's to be recovered; he had several stab wounds to the ribs and sternum, suggesting he was Gacy's first victim. He was the only victim to have been stabbed; all of the other victims were either strangled or asphyxiated. A Model A belt buckle was also recovered from McCoy's body. Gacy was brought to trial on February 6, 1980. On March 13, Gacy was found guilty of 33 counts of murder, indecent liberties with a child and deviate sexual assault. He was sentenced to death and was transferred to the Menard Correctional Center, where he was on death row for 14 years before being executed by lethal injection at the Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994, aged 52.

Funeral
On June 12, 1981, the unidentified remains of McCoy as well as eight other unidentified victims of Gacy (three of whom have since been since identified) were all buried in separate cemeteries, with inscriptions upon their unmarked tombstones that read: "We Remembered." Tom Moriarty, the executive secretary of the Funeral Directors Services Association, stated that the burial sites would not be revealed in order to prevent them from becoming tourist attractions.

In February 1986, Beverly Billings Howe, one of McCoy's cousins located in Lansing, Michigan, read an excerpt of Tim Cahill's book Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer, which was soon due to be released and covered Gacy's life and story. She had read about Gacy's first victim, who had been killed in Chicago shortly after New Year's Day 1972. The victim, who was unidentified, was referred to as the "Greyhound Bus Boy" in the book, and was stabbed to death in Gacy's home. McCoy's relatives had previously suspected Gacy's possible involvement of his disappearance after their last interaction with him in January 1972 and they had heard nothing from McCoy ever since. She proceeded to show the excerpt she had read to her sister, who was also surprised upon reading it.

The family was sure that McCoy was one of the nine unidentified victims and they made calls to people in Chicago to find out more information, which led to them eventually getting ahold of Tim Cahill, the author of the book, and Cahill soon interviewed Beverly and her family. She had recalled in the interview how she had given McCoy a Model A belt buckle which he loved. The same belt buckle was recovered from his body when it was discovered in 1978. This detail interested Cahill and from there, he and journalist Russ Ewing tried to find McCoy's dental records, which were successfully located in Florida, where the McCoy family had previously lived and were passed on to the Cook County Medical Examiner.

Identification
After three months of investigating, Timothy Jack McCoy's identity as one of the nine unidentified victims of Gacy was confirmed on May 9, 1986, eight years after his body was recovered and 14 years after his murder. This now left only eight of the victims unidentified (three of whom have since been identified). After McCoy was identified, his family had learned that one of his aunts, who went by Aunt Tiny, who was supposed to send off McCoy's dental records to Chicago in 1979 hadn't actually done so, as she didn't want to upset the family if it was revealed that McCoy had died.

Dr. John Pavlik, an Olympia Fields orthodontist and chief of forensic science for the Cook County Sheriff's police who made the identification of McCoy possible, stated that McCoy's fillings were "very unique" and his fillings were something only 2-3% of the population had. He also said that McCoy had "certain unique teeth", which helped reduce the percentage of error to the point that he could conclude that McCoy was likely Gacy's first victim.

Second funeral
Soon after his identification, McCoy's remains were returned to his family, who were living in Glenwood, Iowa. A funeral for McCoy was planned, but as his family were tight on money, the cost was picked up by a funeral director and an airline. A week and a half after what would have been McCoy's 31st birthday, he was buried at the Westlawn-Hillcrest Funeral Home and Memorial Park in Omaha, Nebraska. He was laid to rest beside his father, Jack McCoy, who also passed away in 1983. One of McCoy's siblings, Linda McCoy, stated that Timothy's disappearance "hurt his father the most" and was glad he passed away before his son was identified so he "never had to know". Linda was unable to make the funeral as she was pregnant with a son who was about to be born, but as soon as she could, she travelled to Omaha and stood beside Jack and Timothy's tombstones. McCoy's tombstone reads: "Our Beloved Son And Brother. Timothy Jack McCoy." On his tombstone, McCoy's name is seen under a golden mountain.

After McCoy's identification, no developments would be made to identify the other remaining eight victims for 25 years until October 2011, where the Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart announced that the Cook County Police would be renewing their efforts to identify the remaining victims of Gacy. Three victims, William George Bundy (19, identified in November 2011), James Byron Haakenson (16, identified in July 2017) and Francis Wayne Alexander (21, identified in October 2021) have since been identified. Five victims still remain unidentified.