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Thread: John Wayne Gacy - "Killer Clown"

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    John Wayne Gacy - "Killer Clown"









    John Wayne Gacy:

    John Wayne Gacy was convicted of the torture, rape and murder of 33 males between 1972 until his arrest in 1978. He was dubbed the "Killer Clown" because he entertained kids at parties as "Pogo The Clown." He was eventually convicted and sentenced to death. On May 10, 1994, Gacy was executed by lethal injection.

    Gacy's First Known Attack:
    The first known account of John Gacy's sadistic behavior began after his marriage to Marilynn Myers in 1964 in Iowa. He was working in management at his father-in-law's restaurant and somehow lured a young boy to the back and tried to sodomize him when he refused to perform oral sex. The boy reported Gacy to the police and he ended up doing 18 months of a 10 year prison sentence on a sexual molestation conviction.

    Divorced and Disgraced:
    After prison, divorced and disgraced, he decided to return to his hometown Chicago and start a new life. He remarried but the marriage ended quickly, leaving Gacy alone to feed his sadistic fantasies. By 1978 he was actively cruising for homesexual young men and luring them to his home where he would then torture, rape and brutally kill them.

    Looking for Work:
    Another tactic he used to get young men to his home was through posting jobs at his construction company. He would lure them to his house on the pretext of talking to them about a job. Once the boys got inside his home he would overpower them, knock them unconscious and begin his gruesome crime of torture, rape and murder.

    Care for a Cup of Coffee?:
    The police became suspicious of Gacy when a mother of one boy who was to meet Gacy about a job never returned home. When the police saw Gacy's criminal record they began to keep a close eye on him. Gacy, in his usual bizarre behavior, invited the police in for coffee. The police accepted the invitation and once inside they became ovrwhelmed by a strong odor which they recognized as possibly coming from a decaying dead body.

    Bodies Found Under the Crawlspace:
    The police then obtained a search warrant and uncovered 29 bodies in the crawlspace of Gacy's house. The bodies were all male and ranged in age from nine years old to their mid-20s. Later Gacy admitted to more killings in which he dumped the bodies into a nearby river. In searching for all possible victims, the police excavated Gacy's yard and gutted the house, eventually tearing it completely down.

    Executed in 1994 by Lethal Injection:
    After he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980, he continued to taunt authorities with different versions of his story about the murders in an attempt to stay alive. Authorities were not swayed and on May 10, 1994 his execution by lethal injection was carried out.

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    Serial killer's paintings for sale in Las Vegas



    Paintings by serial killer John Wayne Gacy are going up for sale in Las Vegas.

    The pictures show other paintings by Gacy, but not the ones going in the charity auction.

    But the exhibit: "Multiples: The Artwork of John Wayne Gacy" is under fire.

    The charity that it's supposed to benefit, the National Center for Victims of Crime, says it did not agree to be a beneficiary of the sale.

    The organization told CNN that it sent a cease-and-desist letter to the gallery owner.

    Among the paintings expected to be displayed is a self-portrait that Gacy gave to pen-pals.

    Gacy, known as the 'Killer Clown,' was convicted of raping and killing 33 boys and young men.

    He created the 74 pieces of art while he was on death row awaiting his 1994 execution.

    http://www.todaysthv.com/news/articl...e-in-Las-Vegas

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    Judge allows exhumation of John Wayne Gacy victim

    A mother who has for decades doubted that her 14-year-old son was a victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy may finally learn the truth after a judge on Thursday granted her request that the body be exhumed for DNA testing.

    "I hope for her sake it provides some closure for her," Cook County Associate Judge Rita Novak said, as 67-year-old Sherry Marino, her daughter squeezing her shoulder, dabbed her eyes with a tissue in the front row of the courtroom.

    The order, which came almost exactly 35 years to the day Michael Marino disappeared, is the culmination of years of Sherry Marino's efforts to find out whether Gacy killed her son. When the body was identified with dental records more than three years later, Marino did not quite believe it, in large part because the clothes on the remains that were pulled from a crawl space at Gacy's house did not match the clothing she remembers seeing him wear the day he disappeared. Nor did she understand why it took more than three years to identify her son, even though she provided authorities with his dental records shortly after the bodies were discovered and Gacy was arrested.

    "She visits the grave faithfully and always asks, `Is this you, Michael?'" attorney Steven Becker said after the hearing.

    Gacy, a building contractor and amateur clown, was convicted of luring 33 young men and boys to his Chicago-area home and strangling them between 1972 and 1978. Most were buried in a crawl space under the home; four others were dumped in rivers. Gacy was sentenced to death for the 12 killings that occurred after Illinois re-enacted the death penalty in 1977. He received sentences of life in prison for the remaining 21 killings. He admitted the crimes before his trial but later denied having killed all but the first victim.

    Since his conviction and his execution in 1994, the case has popped up in the news occasionally. It was after one local television report about Gacy several months ago that Marino, who has over the years hired private investigators and attorneys to help her, tried yet again to find an attorney who might help her find evidence that was overlooked during the initial investigation.

    That led her to Becker and his partner, Robert Stephenson, whose own search turned up what they say is a discrepancy in dental records. While one chart created for the teen seven months before he disappeared showed a tooth had either been extracted or had not come in yet, a chart recently located by the dentist who examined the body showed a full set of teeth.

    They also found that X-rays taken of the body showed a broken right collar bone _ a fracture that Sherry Marino told the attorneys she did not remember her son ever suffering. Further, the pathological report indicated that boy may have been part American Indian, and the attorneys said Marino said she knew of no American Indian blood in her family.

    The attorneys have acknowledged that there is strong circumstantial evidence that the remains that were identified only as "body 14" are, in fact those of Marino. The most obvious is that in 35 years the teen has never surfaced. Also, the remains were found in Gacy's crawl space next to the remains of a friend of Marino's, who disappeared the same day as Marino.

    "The best we can actually say to anyone is it could be (Marino) and it might not be," said Becker after the hearing. "For as many reasons there are to believe it is Michael Marino there are just as many reasons to believe that it isn't."

    As for the boy's mother, "She still is hoping her son may be alive, he may not be but now at least she'll know," Becker said.

    On Thursday, the attorneys listed all the discrepancies that buttressed their argument that the exhumation requests should be granted.

    The judge agreed, saying she saw no reason why she should not grant the order, and pointed to the "great advances in science" that could give Marino a definitive answer.

    The attorneys said after the hearing that they hoped the exhumation would happen within a month. They said the exhumation and DNA testing would cost a total of about $10,000. Originally their petition asked that the county pay, but at the hearing the attorneys told the judge they were dropping that request. They explained later that they were confident that they could raise the money from the public and that some funeral directors have already contacted them with offers to help defray some of Marino's costs.

    Stephenson said he is confident there will be enough left of the remains to allow for DNA testing, explaining that the autopsy report indicates the body was partially mummified, meaning that the testing will likely provide conclusive results.

    Marino left quickly after the hearing, declining to speak to reporters. At the elevator of the courthouse, she spoke to Becker and Stephenson and tearfully hugged them before the elevator door opened and she left.

    Becker said later her words were not about whether or not her son was alive and what exactly the DNA testing would reveal but about how after 35 years a judge had taken her side.

    "What most pleased her is that (the judge said) she had a right to know," said Becker. "To have that confirmation from the judge, that was the thing that was the most significant to her."

    Read more: http://azdailysun.com/news/national/...#ixzz1a262AqyV

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    John Wayne Gacy suspected victim found alive 34 years later in Florida


    Harold Wayne Lovell, right.
    Harold Wayne Lovell hadn't been seen by his family since he left their Chicago home at age 19 in 1977. For 34 years, his siblings believed he was one of serial killer John Wayne Gacy's eight still unidentified victims.


    According to The Associated Press, Gacy murdered 33 people in the 1970s and Cook County Sheriff's detectives have recently reopened the cases of those eight unidentified remains. They obtained exhumation orders over the past few months for DNA testing, hoping relatives would help track down the victims who went missing in the 1970s.

    Lovell's siblings, Tim Lovell and Theresa Hasselberg, volunteered to help and then found out he's been alive and well in Florida for decades. The Sun-Sentinel reports the pair recently discovered a police booking photo online of their brother, who had been arrested for marijuana possession in 2006, and contacted him by phone.

    Their brother, who goes by his middle name Wayne, took a bus to Hasselberg's home in Ozark, Alabama where the three were reunited Tuesday for the first time in 34 years.

    "I never felt wanted at home, so I left," Wayne, now 53 years old, said. "I've gone from having nothing to having all this," he added, describing the reunion as "awesome."

    The circumstances surrounding Wayne's disappearance in May 1977 fit the description of Gacy's victims. Gacy was a building contractor who lured young men to his home between 1972 and 1978 where he strangled and buried most of them in a crawl space under his house.

    Coincidentally, when Wayne Lovell had left home, he said he was looking for construction work.

    He told the Sun-Sentinel he instead drifted from job to job for three years and partied in Fort Lauderdale. "I feel bad that they had to go through life thinking that I'd been killed like that," he said. "But I was a teenager, and who didn't want to go to Fort Lauderdale, where it's nice, sunny and hot?"

    Tim Lovell and Theresa Hasselberg represents one of more than 120 families who have contacted Illinois authorities to help identify the victims' remains. Lovell said he fully expected his brother to be confirmed as one of them until his surprise discovery that Wayne was still alive.

    Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart told the Sun-Sentinel about 70 of those are possible matches. Seven families have submitted DNA samples, and four more are being readied, he said. Results are expected in two or three weeks.

    Gacy, also an amateur clown and nicknamed the "Killer Clown," was sentenced to death for the 12 killings that occurred after Illinois re-enacted the death penalty in 1977. Though he later denied killing all but the first victim, Gacy confessed to the slayings after his arrest and was executed in 1994.

    http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.s...und_alive.html

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    John Wayne Gacy's DNA evidence from blood may solve old murders

    Detectives have long wondered what secrets serial killer John Wayne Gacy and other condemned murderers took to the grave when they were executed — mostly whether they had other unknown victims.

    Now, in a game of scientific catch-up, the Cook County Sheriff's Department is trying to be creative: They've created DNA profiles of Gacy and others and figured out they could get the executed men entered in a national database shared with other law enforcement agencies because the murderers were technically listed as homicide victims themselves when they were put to death by the state.

    The department's hope is to find matches of DNA evidence from blood, semen or strands of hair, or skin under the fingernails of victims that link the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases. And they're hoping to prompt authorities in other states to submit the DNA of their own executed inmates or from decades-old crime scenes.

    "You just know some of these guys did other murders" that were never solved, said Jason Moran, the sheriffs' detective leading the effort, noting that some of the executed killers ranged all over the country before the convictions that put them behind bars for the last time.

    The Illinois testing, which began during the summer, is the latest chapter in a story that began when Sheriff Tom Dart exhumed the remains of unknown victims of Gacy to create DNA profiles that could be compared with the DNA of people whose loved ones went missing in the 1970s, when Gacy was killing young men.

    That effort, which led to the identification of one Gacy victim, caused Dart to wonder if the technology could help answer a question that has been out there for decades: Did Gacy kill anyone besides those young men whose bodies were stashed under his house or tossed in a river?

    "He traveled a lot," Moran said of Gacy. "Even though we don't have any information he committed crimes elsewhere, the sheriff asked if you could put it past such an evil person."

    After unexpectedly finding three vials of Gacy's blood stored with other Gacy evidence, Moran learned the state would only accept the blood in the crime database if it came from a coroner or medical examiner.

    Moran thought he was out of luck. But then Will County Coroner Patrick O'Neil surprised him with this revelation: In his office freezer were blood samples from Gacy and at least three other executed inmates. The reason they were there is because after the death penalty was reinstated in Illinois in the 1970s, executions were carried out in Will County — all between 1990 and 1999, a year before then-Gov. George Ryan established a moratorium on the death penalty. So it was O'Neil's office that conducted the autopsies and collected the blood samples.

    But there was bigger obstacle.

    While the state does send to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System the profiles of homicide victims no matter when they were killed, it will only send the profiles of known felons if they were convicted since a new state law was enacted about a decade ago that allowed them to be included, Moran said.

    That meant the profile of Gacy, who received a lethal injection in 1994, and the profiles of other executed inmates could not qualify for the database under the felon provision. They could, however, qualify as people who died by homicide.

    "They're homicides because the state intended to take the inmate's life," O'Neil said.

    Last year, authorities in Florida created a DNA profile from the blood of executed serial killer Ted Bundy in an attempt to link him to other murders. But officials there, where the law allows profiles of convicted felons be uploaded into the database as well as the phase-in of profiles of people arrested on felony charges, don't know of any law enforcement agency reaching back into history the way Cook County's sheriff's office is.

    "We haven't had any initiative where we are going back to executed offenders and asking for their samples," said David Coffman, director of Florida Department of Law Enforcement's laboratory system. "I think it's an innovative approach."

    O'Neil said he is still looking for blood samples of the rest of the 12 condemned inmates executed between 1977 when Illinois reinstated the death penalty and 2000 when then-Gov. George Ryan established a moratorium. So far, DNA profiles have been done on the blood of Gacy and two others; the profile of the fourth inmate has not yet been done.

    Among the other executed inmates whose blood was submitted for testing was Lloyd Wayne Hampton, a drifter executed in 1998 for his crimes. Not only did Hampton's long list of crimes include crimes outside the state — one conviction was for the torture of a woman in California — but shortly before he was put to death, he claimed to have committed other murders but never provided details.

    So far, no computer hits have linked Gacy or the others to any other crimes. But Moran and O'Neil suspect there are investigators who are holding DNA evidence that could help solve them.

    That is exactly what happened during the investigation into the 1993 slayings of seven people at a suburban Chicago restaurant, during which an evidence technician collected a half-eaten chicken dinner even though there was no way to test it for DNA at the time.

    When the technology did become available, the dinner was tested and it revealed the identity of one of two men ultimately convicted in the slayings.

    Moran says he wants investigators in other states to know that Gacy's blood is now open for analysis in their unsolved murders. He hopes those jurisdictions will, in turn, submit DNA profiles of their own executed inmates.

    "That is part of the DNA system that's not being tapped into," he said.

    http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.s..._evidence.html
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    Search for Gacy victims on Northwest Side property ends

    CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) - A search of a Northwest Side property where serial killer John Wayne Gacy once worked found no bodies, the Cook County Sheriff's office announced Friday.

    New information was developed that Gacy was engaged in "suspicious activity" outside the building in the 6100 block of West Miami Avenue, where he worked maintenance and his mother once lived, the sheriff's office said.

    Chicago Police searched the property in 1998, but new information brought to the sheriff's department and improved technology resulted in a new search warrant, the sheriff's office said.

    Sheriff's police searched the property March 20 with the FBI and Infrared Diagnostics, Inc., and included three Victim Recovery Canines capable of detecting the scent of human remains, ground penetrating radar and infrared thermographic imaging techniques, the sheriff's office said.

    The investigation found two abnormalities inconsistent with concealed grave sites and the canine unit did not detect any human remains, the release said.

    Infrared imaging conducted after sunset also did not find any evidence of concealed graves.

    Investigators also examined the floor of the laundry room, but there was no indication the floor had been disturbed since the building was constructed.

    Gacy was convicted of murdering 33 men and boys in the 1970s. He was executed by lethal injection in 1994. Many of his victims were buried in the crawl space of his former house in the 8200 block of West Summerdale Avenue.

    Dart jumped back on the Gacy case in 2011, when his office exhumed skeletons of unidentified victims to determine their identities, leading to the identification of William George Bundy, who was 17 when he was killed.

    http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/22...#ixzz2T3KKSmql

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    Presumed Victim Of John Wayne Gacy Found Living In Montana

    CHICAGO (AP) — A man presumed dead for decades as a potential victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy has been reunited with his family after investigators found him alive and well in Montana.

    Robert Hutton was located in April after his sister submitted his name as a possible Gacy victim, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said Thursday. Investigators in Dart's office collected DNA samples two years ago from the remains of eight unnamed victims in an effort to identify them.

    Hutton was last heard from in 1972, when he told his mother he was traveling from New York to California. Hutton presumably passed through Chicago, where Gacy lived; Hutton fit the profile of a Gacy victim; and it was the year Gacy killed his first known victims.

    Hutton, 21 at the time, was a hitchhiker who often traveled by bus and worked in construction.

    Gacy, a building contractor and amateur clown, was convicted of luring 33 young men and boys to his Chicago-area home — sometimes by hiring them for construction work — and strangling them between 1972 and 1978. Most were buried in a crawl space under his home. Four others were dumped in a river.

    Gacy was executed in 1994.

    Dart's office said investigators acted quickly on the Hutton lead because of how closely he fit the victim profile. They eventually traced a man with the same identifying information to Colorado, only to learn he had moved. They later located the same man in rural Montana, and he confirmed to local law enforcement authorities that he was the same Robert Hutton who disappeared in 1972.

    Dart said Hutton has visited his father and plans to visit his sister.

    Since the Gacy investigation was reopened, one additional victim has been identified and seven missing persons cases have been closed; five were found alive and two had died of natural causes.

    Two other unrelated missing persons cases have been solved after family submitted DNA that later was matched with bodies found in other states.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...n_4479395.html

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    Investigation in Gacy case helps solve Chicago man's unrelated killing from 1978

    CHICAGO – Four decades after John Wayne Gacy lured more than 30 young men and boys to his Chicago-area home and strangled them, his case has helped authorities solve another killing -- one he didn't commit.

    Investigators have identified the remains of a man who in 1978 never returned to his home just a few miles from Gacy's house. They also say they know the identity of his now-deceased killer. The Cook County Sheriff's Office is scheduled to announce the findings Wednesday -- the result of an ongoing effort to name several unidentified victims of Gacy, who was executed in 1994.

    Authorities released the information to The Associated Press ahead of their announcement.

    Though the news that 22-year-old Edward Beaudion of Chicago is believed to have been killed by a small-time Missouri crook named Jerry Jackson who died last year at age 62 comes too late to bring Jackson to justice, it answers a question Beaudion's family has spent decades asking.

    "I always thought he was killed but you still aren't sure until you get the proof," said Beaudion's father, Louis Beaudion, 86, who professed that he was "scared" he would die, as his wife did in 2001, without knowing what happened.

    Many questions still remain in the case that may never be answered. Edward Beaudion's skull, which could have revealed how he died, was never recovered.

    Beaudion was driving his sister's car on July 23, 1978, when he dropped a friend off and told her he was heading home. No one ever heard from him again.

    That August, Jackson was taken into custody in Caruthersville, Mo., after he was found driving the car, which Beaudion's family had reported stolen.

    Jackson was extradited to Chicago, where police said he told them he had met Beaudion on July 23 in downtown Chicago and had punched him in the face during an altercation, rendering him unconscious. Police said he told them he stuffed Beaudion's body in the car, drove to a wooded area about 15 miles southwest of Chicago and dumped it.

    When he took police to the area, a search for the body came up empty. Without a body, police didn't charge him in Beaudion's death, settling for auto theft instead and a four-year prison sentence for Jackson.

    In 2008, hikers discovered a partial skeleton in a forest preserve -- in the same general area where Jackson had taken police years before. With little more than shreds of clothing and no indication of a cause of death, the investigation went nowhere. The bones, one of which had an orthopedic screw in it, were taken to the county medical examiner's office.

    "They never did anything," Sheriff Tom Dart said.

    Three years later, Dart's office exhumed eight of Gacy's unidentified victims from the 1970s to test DNA. And the sheriff asked that relatives of young men who disappeared about the time Gacy was committing slayings to submit DNA samples for comparison.

    Beaudion's sister, Ruth Rodriguez, called. "I didn't think Gacy killed him but we figured we'd go ahead and try," she said.

    Tests ruled out Gacy as her brother's killer.

    In the meantime, sheriff's detective Jason Moran was among those working with the medical examiner's office to clean up the operation in the wake of embarrassing revelations about stacked bodies and remains tossed haphazardly in boxes. As a result of that work, the office shipped some unidentified bones to the same lab where Moran had earlier sent DNA samples from Beaudion's relatives as part of the Gacy investigation.

    Then earlier this year, the lab reported a "genetic association" between the bones and Beaudion's relatives' DNA.

    Moran said he interviewed Beaudion's father and sister, who confirmed Beaudion had an orthopedic screw in his left knee.

    Rodriguez and her father said they're disappointed Jackson died before he could be brought to justice.

    "I still want to ask Jerry Jackson why, if you even thought for a moment my brother was still alive ... you brought him all the way out there and dumped him like garbage," Rodriguez said.

    Beaudion's family did not exactly find justice, but they were able to identify their loved one's remains and get closer to knowing what happened to him. Detective Moran said he recalls the moment when he and Sheriff Dart recently took the family out to the spot where the bones were found.

    "He (Louis Beaudion) starts crying and opens a bag that has a cross in it (and) he gets down on one knee and with a little hammer pounded this cross into the ground," Moran said. "This guy, 36 years after his son is killed, he's crying like he went missing yesterday and then he grabbed my arm and said, `Thank you."'

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/23...man-unrelated/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
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    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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    Exhumation of Gacy victims reveals identity of teen in unrelated San Francisco homicide case

    CHICAGO — An effort to identify the remains of young men murdered by serial killer John Wayne Gacy in the 1970s has led to a break in an unrelated case of a previously unidentified teenager found shot to death in San Francisco 36 years ago.

    The Cook County Sheriff's office will announce Wednesday that tests have revealed a "genetic association" between the teenager and the DNA of a woman whose half brother, Andre Drath, went missing decades ago.

    The sheriff asked relatives of missing teens to submit DNA to determine if it matched unidentified Gacy victims, and the woman submitted hers in 2011.

    The sheriff's office submitted the DNA to a federal database. The match was discovered after San Francisco authorities submitted DNA of the teen to the database last year.

    http://www.startribune.com/gacy-exhu...tim/328804851/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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    In this Nov. 30, 2012 file photo, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, left, and Detective Jason Moran are seen in Chicago with three vials of mass murderer John Wayne Gacy's blood.


    Probe into serial killer John Wayne Gacy's victims clears other cold cases

    CHICAGO (AP) — His task was to solve a cruel mystery decades after a serial killer's death.

    Sgt. Jason Moran's work began in a graveyard, his first stop in his quest to identify the eight unknown victims of John Wayne Gacy. More than 30 years had passed since Gacy had murdered 33 young men and boys.

    Investigators now had more sophisticated crime-solving tools, notably DNA, so the Cook County sheriff's detective was assigned to find out who was buried in eight anonymous graves.

    Moran quickly helped a family confirm Gacy killed their brother.

    Since then, though, his search has led him down a totally unexpected path: He's cleared 11 unrelated cold cases across America.

    After eliminating these young men as Gacy victims, he's pored over DNA results, medical and Social Security records, enlisted anthropologists, lab technicians and police in Utah, Colorado, New Jersey and other states — and cracked missing person's cases that had been dormant for decades.

    Most recently, Moran identified a 16-year-old murder victim in San Francisco who had been buried 36 years ago.

    He's brought comfort to some by proving, through science and dogged research that their missing loved ones are dead.

    He's brought joy to others, finding long-lost brothers and sons still alive.

    Marveling at this remarkable detour from the ghastly Gacy trail, Moran says he recently told his boss:

    "Is it possible that an evil serial killer has done some good?"

    Moran's work began four years ago after Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart publicly urged anyone who thought a relative was an unidentified Gacy victim to submit to a DNA test.

    Moran prioritized about 170 tips from more than 20 states, representing some 80 missing young men.

    He focused on those similar in age (14 to 24) and background to Gacy's victims: Many had troubled families or substance abuse problems. Some were gay. Others had worked construction for Gacy, a building contractor. He was executed in 1994.

    Authorities had long ago removed the jaw bones and teeth of the eight unknown victims, hoping for eventual identification. Decades later, they were buried, only to be exhumed in 2011. Moran took them to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, where lab workers developed solid DNA profiles for four victims. For the other four, the entire remains had to be exhumed.

    Within weeks, Moran cracked one case.

    William Bundy's mother had suspected Gacy killed her son, but the case was stymied because his dentist had destroyed his patients' records after retiring.

    Three decades later, Bundy's mother was dead, but his sister and brother provided DNA, resulting in a match to the unknown victim. It wasn't enough for a firm identification.

    Moran then studied the man's dental records, noticing empty spaces where his upper canine teeth had been removed. Bundy had those same teeth removed, saved them — and his sister kept them all those years.
    Case cleared.

    Bundy is the only Gacy victim Moran has identified. But he's helped other families who feared their loved ones died at Gacy's hands.

    In every case involving DNA, Moran told families the results would be entered in CODIS, the federal Combined DNA Index System. If a genetic link emerged, he'd call.

    It took almost four years for Willa Wertheimer to get that life-changing call.

    In 2011, she'd told Moran about her half-brother, Andre Drath. Their mother died when both were very young.

    When the grief-stricken little boy began getting in trouble, his stepfather turned him over to the state. Drath was abused in foster homes. Then one day he disappeared.

    "I used to fantasize about finding him," Wertheimer says. "I just wanted to hold him and tell him I love him and say I'm sorry about everything that had happened."

    Her DNA eliminated any link to Gacy victims, but last fall, a Texas lab worker notified Moran it was associated with an unidentified body found in San Francisco in 1979. That DNA hadn't been submitted to CODIS until late 2014.

    Moran reviewed the San Francisco police and medical examiner's reports, which showed the man had been shot multiple times. It also disclosed an all-important detail: A tattoo — Andy — on his right shoulder.

    Moran found more evidence in files from the Illinois agency that supervised Drath as a state ward — including dental records matching those of the teen buried in Ocean Beach.

    It was bittersweet news for Wertheimer.

    "I was relieved that he wasn't hurting," she says, "but knowing how he died ... I felt awful."

    San Francisco police have reactivated their investigation. Moran hopes to soon have Drath's remains exhumed from a California cemetery.

    "I brought her to this point," he says, "now I'd like to help bring him home."

    Jason Moran cradled an urn as he arrived at the North Side home.

    It had been 36 years since Edward Beaudion left that house, a 22-year-old heading to a wedding. Now, the detective was delivering his cremated remains to his sister, Ruth Rodriguez, and elderly father, Louis.

    DNA and old-fashioned police work brought this mystery to a frustrating end.

    The case had a suspect: A petty criminal named Jerry Jackson told police in 1978 that he'd fought with Beaudion in downtown Chicago, dragged his body into a car, then dumped him in a suburban forest preserve, according to Moran.

    Jackson was arrested in Caruthersville, Missouri, with the car Beaudion had been driving. It belonged to his sister; she found a bullet inside.

    A search of the woods, though, turned up no body. Jackson was convicted only of stealing the car and items inside.

    Decades later, Moran started investigating. "I really felt the sadness and desperation in their voices," he says.

    Last year, their DNA was linked to skeletal remains that had recently arrived at the Texas lab. Some kids had spotted a leg bone in the woods where Jackson said he'd dumped Beaudion's body.

    That discovery was in 2008. Unfortunately, the remains sat in the Cook County medical examiner's office five years before being sent to be tested. Studying the autopsy report, Moran noticed the leg bone contained a surgical screw in one knee. Beaudion had one, too.

    That was enough to confirm his identity — yet that five-year delay thwarted Moran's bigger plan: While preparing to go to Missouri to arrest Jackson in Beaudion's death, he discovered: Jackson had recently died.

    Still, Moran sensed the family was relieved.

    "His father told me when he dies, he'll have Edward's ashes in his casket and said, 'All of three of us will be together in perpetuity.'"

    Thousands of miles away, a 75-year-old Army vet had his own lingering questions.

    Ron Soden contacted Moran about his younger half-brother, Steven, who'd vanished in 1972.

    He'd run away during a camping trip organized by the New Jersey orphanage where he lived with his sister, April. Their mother had placed them there.

    Steven's father lived in Chicago. Could he have traveled there looking for him? Moran thought it possible, and teamed with New Jersey State Police to work the case.

    April's DNA was ultimately linked with skeletal remains found at New Jersey's Bass River State Forest, about a mile from where Steven was last seen. That discovery was in 2000, but it wasn't until 2013 — and more DNA tests from another half-brother — that Steven was identified. Hypothermia is suspected as the cause of death.

    "We always held out that hope ... then all of sudden you find out and it's not there anymore," says Ron Soden, who lives in Tacoma, Washington. "To realize he probably died at 17 ... it's just a shame his life had to be that way through no fault of his own."

    These poignant stories, Moran says, motivate him.

    "You've got these young kids who struggle through their short lives," he says. "Now they're anonymous. They don't have a headstone saying they were ever on this earth. I want them to have some dignity and respect so the world knows they once lived.

    "I mean, everybody deserves a name."

    There are happy endings in Moran's work.

    Amazingly, he's located five living men who'd vanished in the 1970s. "I scold them and say, 'Why would you do this to a loving family?'"

    In 2013, Moran reunited Edyth and Robert Hutton — after 41 years.

    Edyth had made numerous attempts to find her brother, including mailing about 300 postcards to various Robert, Rob, Bob and Bobby Huttons nationwide.

    A relative who is a private investigator thought he'd located Hutton in Colorado. But when Edyth and her father wrote letters to that address, they were returned as undeliverable.

    In a last-ditch effort she searched NamUs, a website featuring missing and unidentified people, narrowing her list to seven. She contacted the respective law enforcement agencies. One person replied: Jason Moran.

    Using Hutton's vital statistics, Moran thought he'd tracked him to Colorado but when police arrived, the man was gone.

    Moran waited several months and when the sheriff's analysts checked updated databases they found a match in Montana.

    "Your brother is alive," Moran told Hutton's sister. The siblings re-connected the next day.

    "I felt like a hole in my heart had been filled," she says.

    Her brother, she says, told her he'd gotten involved with drugs, straightened out and returned to the family's hometown in California but everyone had moved. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

    Robert Hutton recently moved to Nevada to live near his sister.

    "We see each other almost daily," she says, "and we love it."

    http://www.nola.com/business/index.s...rt_river_index
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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