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Warning, this article discusses sexual assault which some readers may find distressing.
John Wayne Gacy, the man known as the 'killer clown', had a number of odd requests in place for those that wanted to interview him.
The American serial killer was known for killing 33 boys and men in the Chicago area in the 1970s, and was arrested in December 1978 after the murder of 15-year-old Robert Piest.
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Every murder was carried out in Gacy's home in Norwood Park, with 29 of the bodies later being found buried in his garden, while the remaining four had been thrown into the Des Plaines River.
Well known for fronting as a performer that played 'Pogo the Clown' at a number of parties, Gacy had previously been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sodomy after joining a club of men who would wife swap, engage in prostitution, porn and take drugs.
Realising at a young age that he was attracted to men, his feelings would later turn to something unforgiving, as he lured teenage boys into his basement when he was in his twenties, where he would force them into sexual acts.
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He only served two of the 10 years before becoming the 'killer clown' in Illinois and carried out all of his killings over eight years from 1970-1978.
When he was arrested and put on death row, journalists and psychologists were desperate to get his side of things on record, but it turned out that his requests and requirements for an individual to speak to him were as twisted as he was.
A criminal profiler ended up giving up on his attempts to interview him just one year before he was given the lethal injection in 1994.
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After requesting an interview, the killer clown sent back a pamphlet that maintained his innocence, along with a questionnaire of personal questions, requesting him to fill it in and send it back with a photo.
"My policy is simple no photo, no answer with bio sheet in full," Gacy wrote to psychoanalyst John Kelly in April 1993.
Kelly had interviewed a number of serial killers, and was desperate to add Gacy to his list, classifying his as a 'sexual serial killer', and compared him to other murderers with his motive as he grew up with an abusive father.
Kelly told Fox News Digital: "This is how serial killers are made."
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But Gacy had some demands for people who reached out to him to talk, as he wrote to Kelly: "If you want to submit some questions in writing, then I would be willing to answer them so long as they don't deal with my case,
"In doing so whenever I talk with anyone I like to know who that is and some common facts about them enclosed is a bio sheet which you can fill out and return with a photo.
"I am nobody important, just a man caught up in the justice system," Gacy stated in the brief, asking to be called John or JW instead of 'Mr. Gacy.'
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Gacy's questionnaire asked for personal information such as a date of birth, marital status, political orientation, your new year's resolution and the person's 'current hero'.
As well as this, he asked some deeper questions, such as, 'If I were an animal I'd be', 'Friends like be because' and 'What I think of this country."
But it got creepy too, as he asked about 'thoughts on sex' and 'what your [sic] thinking now'.
The exchange of letters came as he was sitting on death row, but Kelly said that he saw the requests as the killer's attempt to get him to argue for his innocence, so never filled out the questionnaire.
Kelly revealed: "He was trying to find ways to manipulate me,
"Based on what he wanted to see, and based on the propaganda he wanted me to peddle for him."
Gacy also bizarrely sent him a self-produced pamphlet that questioned the substantial evidence used to convict him and titled it: "They Called Him the Killer Clown: But Is JW Gacy a Mass Murderer or Another Victim?" the headline read.
In a New Yorker profile published a month before Gacy's death, interviewer Alec Wilkinson revealed some of Gacy's answers to his own survey, calling himself 'liberal, with values', detailing that his biggest fear was 'dying before I have a chance to clear my name.'
Topics: Crime, US News, Weird, True Crime, History
Joshua Nair