Talk:John Wayne Gacy

Norwood Park Township
This article list Norwood Park Township as “close” to Chicago. It was actually incorporated into Chicago in 1893, so it is a Chicago neighborhood, not a suburb and is “in” Chicago, not near it. 2607:FB91:2236:C8E3:181C:E48D:9906:7F6E (talk) 22:23, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Death by asphyxiation
I could be wrong, but I think Gacy stuffed his victim's throats to muffle their screams, not necessarily to kill them. Shouldn't this be mentioned? Do the sources clarify this? Not saying that they didn't die by asphyxiation, but it could have been an accident. LittleJerry (talk) 02:17, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Generally he did, yes. Those wads of cloth/clothing were wound and lodged deep in the rear of the mouths and blocking the upper trachea and esophagus of the victims, however. Cahill's book states Stein ruled the cause of death of these victims as asphyxiation. If memory serves me correct, Stein ruled that twelve victims found in the property - plus Piest - died of asphyxiation. Landingin was found with his own underwear in his throat; he asphyxiated on his own vomit (reflux lodged back into his bronchi) as a result of the body's response to the gag.--Kieronoldham (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Didn't the defense attorneys claim that almost all of the victims (including Piest and Landingin) were killed by the "rope trick", and clothing in their throats was just padding added postmortum to block fluids from draining out of their mouths? Randomuser335S (talk) 16:21, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Supposedly yes, Gacy said he started doing that after one of the victims leaked on his carpet, with a stain to prove it. Though it also seems Gacy's style to lie about/appeal to something real, like a stain. The inference seems to be that on a dozen or so victims the rope trick only knocked them out, while the padding added wasn't really post mortem and was what killed them. Saying it was to muffle screams is another idea. I believe it was the 2nd victim which Gacy said was leaking on his carpet, so that one is most interesting to me. Between McCoy and Butkovich, the first he used the handcuff trick on? He didn't use it on McCoy (allegedly), but was seasoned by Butkovich. Cake  (talk) 19:51, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Brian Peck
Kyle Sullivan said in the "Quiet on Set" documentary that All That dialogue coach/sex offender Brian Peck and John Wayne Gacy were pen pals. Should that be mentioned in the article? Thebirdlover (talk) 22:58, 20 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't think that should be included here. In my opinion, it's just an extremely trivial bit of information that has no relevance to Gacy's case. Due to his pseudo-celebrity status, scores of people correspond with him on death row, and Peck is far from unique in that regard. Randomuser335S (talk) 16:26, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2024
Please add in the section Films and media


 * The track "Pogo" by the Italian band Gray Hat, released in 2024, focuses on the figure of John Wayne Gacy, drawing a parallel between the killer and the arrogance of powerful individuals in the world.

Sources: Spotify Link, Explanation of the song made by the band (in Italian)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Spotify and Instagram are not reliable sources, and in this case not secondary either. For the song to be considered notable enough to be added to the page, you would need to prove said notability with sources. Irltoad (talk) 08:50, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Should be more indivdual pages be made for the victims?
This past week, someone created pages for victims John Butkovich and Timothy McCoy. Should pages be made for other well known and documented victims such as Robert Piest, Gregory Godzik, and John Syzc? Randomuser335S (talk) 17:11, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Without wishing to sound insensitive, I really think these two pages fail WP:Notability. With the possible exception of Robert Piest, none of the victims should have a Wiki. article created.--Kieronoldham (talk) 01:03, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Honestly, it was also a bit jarring to me to see pages created specifically for them. Those victims in particular are a bit well known (though I don't see how notable they of themselves are for a spotlight article), but many of other Gacy's victims are very poorly documented. Some of them, like David Talsma, can only have the entirety of their publicly disclosed personal lives surmised in two or three sentences at most.
 * Piest's family on the other hand was quite vocal about his life. Much of his family history, personal hobbies, relationships with peers, life aspirations, and education have been written about at length by involved authorities such as Kozenczak and Sullivan. Added with his importance to the Gacy case, a small but substantial page can easily be written about him. Randomuser335S (talk) 02:05, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * With Columbine, the one case I know better than this one, there's the bizarre instance of having an article for the perpetrators and the attack, and some of the victims like Rachel Scott. I don't understand how this isn't all one article, but have got slapped down every time I tried to correct it. Despite other attacks seemingly having it right by having the perpetrator as a section of the attack rather than giving them the benefit of their own article. I think it only gives unwarranted publicity to a perpetrator, including the victim pages. It seems at worst the material aspect of killing people resulting in them being the perpetrators slaves in the afterlife, as the Zodiac dreamed.  Cake  (talk) 19:43, 30 June 2024 (UTC)