He grew up in a family where his father was a drunk and would get beaten with a razor blade if he and his siblings misbehaved. As he grew older, he was well-liked in his community and would also perform as a neighborhood clown at children's parties. One day, in 1978, Robert Piest, a fifteen-year-old boy, disappeared. His mother said John called her about a construction job. Police went to Gacy's home and searched his property and what they found was very disturbing. It was discovered that he had killed 33 wicked boys and youths and that the majority of them had been buried under the house and garage and elsewhere in the Des Plaines River. Gacy invited his “victims to his home with promises of construction work and ended up strangling most of them, then raping them (“John Wayne Gacy Biography,” 2014). He would also dress in his alter ego "Pose the Clown". Although Gacy confessed to the crimes, the trial “focused on whether he could be declared insane and therefore transferred to a state mental institution” (“John Wayne Gacy Biography,” 2014). Gracy told police that his murder was committed by him but by his alter ego. He was sentenced to 12 death sentences and 21 natural life sentences. While in prison, he took up art and some of his works were exhibited in a Chicago gallery. On May 10, 1994, John Wayne Gacy died following a lethal injection at Statesville Correctional Center in Crest Hill.