New John Wayne Gacy Victim Identified

[+ Gar1eth]

The poor boy was 16 and most likely gay (unless he was straight and just liked wearing make-up and hanging around gays).

 

A Family’s Decades-Long Quest Ends at a Chilling Designation: Victim No. 24

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/john-wayne-gacy-victim.html

 

 

He was from Minnesota. There was something in the article that struck me as strange. His sister said that in 1976 they didn't think anything about hitchhiking. I know this has been discussed before and a few of you talk about hitchhiking in college. And maybe my parents had just impressed on me that this was something not safe to do, I had read/heard accounts of bad things happening, or I was just not a brave soul (never have been). But I was 15 at the time. This boy was 16. I would not even have thought of hitchhiking in the 1970's. Maybe it was more acceptable with what I'm presuming was his rural upbringing than in my suburban community.

 

Gman

[caliguy]

I read one of his Gacy's biography's. He's goes down as a one of a kind in history. Killing wasn't enough for him. He was a true sadist that enjoyed the the pain and agony of his victims. In his biography it all started when some kid he had sex with got him sent to the slammer. From then on it was part revenge and of coarse dead kids tell no tales.

 

One of the chief reasons I would never allow a stranger to put handcuffs on me for play and I don't like clowns.

[+ Gar1eth]

I read one of his Gacy's biography's. He's goes down as a one of a kind in history. Killing wasn't enough for him. He was a true sadist that enjoyed the the pain and agony of his victims. In his biography it all started when some kid he had sex with got him sent to the slammer. From then on it was part revenge and of coarse dead kids tell no tales.

 

One of the chief reasons I would never allow a stranger to put handcuffs on me for play and I don't like clowns.

 

I like clowns-in general-but no one is handcuffing me unless there is a gun trained on me, and I'm forced into it.

 

Gman

[Bearofdistinction]

I like clowns-in general-but no one is handcuffing me unless there is a gun trained on me, and I'm forced into it.

 

Gman

 

I prefer leather

[hedonist4now]

This was an innocent 16-year old whose life was taken away, and you are making "leather" jokes?

[+ sniper]

My oldest brother went to college in the late 70s early 80s and since he didn't have a car and my parents' was unreliable, they would drop him off on the highway and he would hitchhike the 80 or so miles to school. But we lived in Jersey which is fairly densely populated.

[+ Charlie]

I was warned as a young man not about hitch-hiking but about picking up hitch-hikers, because someone my parents knew was murdered by a hitch-hiker he had picked up (BTW, sniper, it was in New Jersey). Hitch-hikers used to be pretty common in rural areas, but I rarely see one anywhere today.

[rvwnsd]

My oldest brother went to college in the late 70s early 80s and since he didn't have a car and my parents' was unreliable, they would drop him off on the highway and he would hitchhike the 80 or so miles to school. But we lived in Jersey which is fairly densely populated.

The Northwest Side of Chicago and the near northwest suburbs, where this occurred, are very densely populated. I know - I grew up there in the 1970's. Still can't drive through the unincorporated area of Norwood Park Township without getting shivers up my spine.

 

My dad was convinced that one of his victims was a kid who picked on me in elementary school. I'm not sure whether that is true nor do I care to find out.

[+ quoththeraven]

The poor boy was 16 and most likely gay (unless he was straight and just liked wearing make-up and hanging around gays).

 

A Family’s Decades-Long Quest Ends at a Chilling Designation: Victim No. 24

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/john-wayne-gacy-victim.html

 

 

He was from Minnesota. There was something in the article that struck me as strange. His sister said that in 1976 they didn't think anything about hitchhiking. I know this has been discussed before and a few of you talk about hitchhiking in college. And maybe my parents had just impressed on me that this was something not safe to do, I had read/heard accounts of bad things happening, or I was just not a brave soul (never have been). But I was 15 at the time. This boy was 16. I would not even have thought of hitchhiking in the 1970's. Maybe it was more acceptable with what I'm presuming was his rural upbringing than in my suburban community.

 

Gman

Yes, Gman, hitchhiking was still relatively mainstream in the 1970s. A guy I knew hitchhiked from college in the Southern Tier of New York to SUNY New Paltz for the weekend. It still had risks, though. A female student hitchhiking for the first time in order to get to an internship at a local business was kidnapped and raped by a local teenager and left tied to a tree. By the beginning of the next semester, the university negotiated a deal with public transit for free rides with college ID for a mandatory $5 per semester fee. I doubt that was coincidence.

[+ honcho]

the university negotiated a deal with public transit for free rides with college ID for a mandatory $5 per semester fee. I doubt that was coincidence.

 

Still true of California State University, Sacramento (the fee if there was one, was so small I didn't notice) and

San Francisco Conservatory of Music with SF Muni (when I was applying a couple of years ago and also had a housemate

who went, but there the fee was quite hefty - $400/semester, which is about the cost of a senior monthly pass).

[+ pitman]

I had a summer job in the early '70s selling door-to-door. The company that recruited me encouraged those that didn't have cars to hitchhike to and from their sales territories. The whole arrangement was pretty strange, somewhat akin to being in a cult. My parents were uncomfortable with it, but I ignored their concerns. I checked recently and the company is still in business. Their MO sounds very similar to what I experienced, but I doubt they still encourage hitchhiking.