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AP
John Wayne Gacy was convicted of murdering 33 young men between 1972 and 1978.
Three people have come forward with new information that suggests serial killer John Wayne Gacy had an accomplice in some of his grisly rape and torture murders, two Chicago lawyers say.
The three were friends of one of Gacy’s 33 victims, John Mowery, and their stories indicate Mowery’s roommate had a hand in his death, criminal defense attorneys Robert Stephenson and Steven Becker say.
“We conclusively believe this individual was involved as an accomplice at least in this one (murder), and we suspect others as well,” Stephenson told msnbc.com on Friday.
Mowery, a 19-year-old former Marine, disappeared the night of Sept. 25, 1977. He was last seen alive leaving his mother’s house in Chicago after dinner. His body was among 29 corpses of young men and boys found buried on Gacy’s property in an unincorporated part of Norwood Park Township, a little over a dozen miles outside Chicago, in 1978. Four other victims were dumped in a river.
Becker and Stephenson said they recently spoke with two women and a man who knew Mowery. According to their accounts, a man who knew Gacy moved into Mowery’s Chicago apartment three days before Mowery went missing.
The day after Mowery disappeared, the two women went to his apartment looking for him. While there, they say, the roommate told them he knew of a location in the Chicago area where dead bodies were stored.
“He told us that he knew of a location where there were a bunch of dead bodies that nobody knew about, not even the police, which I remember very clearly because he said this with such a terrible smirk on his face,” one of the women told WGN. (The women also spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times. Neither WGN nor the Sun-Times used their names because the women said they still fear the roommate.)
The roommate also reportedly said Mowery probably just took off on a trip and tried to persuade one of the women to take Mowery’s dog.
“If John was simply on his trip, there would be no need to give John’s dog away and seems to imply that Accomplice knew John was not coming back,” Stephenson and Becker conclude in a written summary.
They also said it’s unlikely that Gacy had enough time to kill Mowery and bury the body alone, and then show up for work at 6 o’clock the next morning at his contractor’s job in Michigan.
Mowery’s roommate would later testify as a prosecution witness at Gacy’s trial. He told the court he helped dig a trench in the crawlspace of Gacy’s home where most of the victims were found. But he denied knowing about any of the murders.
Stephenson and Becker say the roommate also matches the description of a second attacker that a man who survived a March 1978 sexual attack in Gacy’s home gave to authorities.
Related: Serial killer John Wayne Gacy had accomplices, lawyers say
Msnbc.com is not naming the former roommate because he has not been charged in the Gacy case. Stephenson and Becker said the man is apparently still living in the Chicago area. A message msnbc.com left at the telephone number the lawyers provided for the man was not returned.
Court records provided by Stephenson and Becker indicate the man served prison time in 2003 on a state aggravated battery charge for attacking a man with a bat. He was also among nine people indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2003 in an alleged conspiracy to burn down movie theaters in retaliation for labor contract disputes. He served 31 months in prison for that crime, according to Stephenson.
Stephenson and Becker have been pursuing new leads in the Gacy case on their own time for several months. They say the evidence they’ve uncovered suggests the so-called “Killer Clown” had help carrying out some of the murders.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office has said it will review the lawyers’ findings and pursue investigations as warranted.
"Have we ruled out that someone would have helped Gacy in one or more of the murders? No," Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart told msnbc.com last week.
Stephenson and Becker say the women in the Mowery case contacted Chicago police at the time about their encounter with the roommate but their information was never followed up on or forwarded to prosecutors working on the Gacy case.
“Had they known this accomplice moved in with John Mowery three days before he disappeared I think that would have changed the nature of this investigation,” Stephenson said. “This guy was an accomplice. There’s no other way to explain the connections."
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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Now there's some sad things known to man, But there aint too much sadder than, the tears of a clown...when there's no one around...
You are not Smokie Robinson. Nice try though.
He admitted helping Gacy dig a trench under his house? Where you involved in any of these murders?
Uhmmm no. Well OK then,have a nice day.
I guess it takes a village to raise a child, but it only takes a partner to kill one !
Smoke a joint, go to jail for 20 years - kill 37 people, NO problem!
The American judicial system: looney tunes on steroids.
Good point, Ritdog! I can't help but think that more killers and their accomplices would be in prison if police spent less time on pot smokers and more time on real killers. Why did the alcohol prohibition go away in a few years but the hemp/pot prohibition has lasted for generations? The answer is more in hemp than pot. If it were legal and unregulated, hemp would be stiff competition as a source of fuel, paper, clothing and many other items. Unregulated hemp couldn't be monopolized. A lot of money and power is invested in keeping hemp illegal by keeping marijuana illegal. Those of us without oil company money still have the power to petition.
Please sign this petition and share it with your friends. Hemp was the real target of the 1937 marijuana ban and the real reason it continues to be prohibited in spite of it's great popularity and harmlessness. Here's a bit of history:
Apparently they didn't like the links.
click here:
click here:
click here:
A little late to come forward now..As+holes!
If you read the article, it said they provided this information at the time, but it wasn't followed up on or forwarded to the investigators on the case. Sloppy police work.
Typical cowboy, dumb as the day is long. They did report it to the Chicago crooks at the time of his disappearance and they did nothing about it. Another man came forward and told the Chicago crooks that a man tried to abduct him and the crooks told him to shut up and go home or go to the lock up. Now I know as a cowboy you might be offended since you are homosexual yourself but to blame the witnesses is just wrong. Blame Gacy and the rest of the your homosexual pedophile buddies for this crime.
True that Urban Cowboy didn't read the article closely enough to get the part about the women reporting the roommate in a timely fashion, but that does not excuse your offensive homophobic comments. Apparently you have some internal issues to work out, Charles. Accept yourself and maybe your fears and hatred toward others will subside.
"Homophobic"? Sheesh, ain't you the fancypants! Talk about allowing someone else to frame the issue. I hate buzzwords and liberal superiority. AllThatAndBrains? So you say!
As asinine as a lot of the comments on this story are, the ones from the homophobes are the most offensive. You "guys" need some therapy. And maybe a diaper change.
hey Billy: you a homophiliac? i am not in the least afraid of gays....not at all. that's what the literal meaning of homophobe is...fear of homosexuals.
charles..that is a very gay sounding name. are you sure YOU werent anally raped by Gacy? or was it consensual?
You prove my point with every post.
Another sad chapter in a sad story.
Amazing what people would say for $$$$$.
If Gacy had accomplices, I'd bet they're some of the unidentified remains. There's no way Gacy wouldn't have informed on them. He was NOT a tough, bad azz personality and would have broken under police pressure easily. Not likely there were any accomplices anyway, someone probably just wants to write another stupid book.
Good for him.
A fat tubalard man, A man of disgust, in no shape at all buries bodies. Sounds easy...Not when they are being buried in cement....in a crawl space...and in the ground. It makes perfect sense to me that someone knew. Gacy was a very social person. The person who knew...and helped him occaisionally was also a fudgepacker...and Gacy
I'm sure paid him well....with money or favors of some sort. If I was the police...I'd go to all the cell mates this guy had...undercover of course... IF this is true...there is a man who is just as or more dangerous than Gacy out there... FREE. I always for some reason believed that he did not do it alone. He was not a loner as Jeffrey Dahmer was.... Gacy did have help....All the pieces fit. Please find out before it's too late...
Cyndi, you should be the undercover cellmate. You'll be able to get the truth and save the day, I'm sure.
Please don't tell me the accomplice was Michelle Bachmann. She said she made no gaffes while "campaigning" in Iowa. Maybe she knew more than we did.
No room here for the criminally violent, anywhere.
That's enough to simply execute the perp; society has no room and no need for those who cannot comply with rudimentary social rules. Citizen taxpayers have no obligation to take of or support these a$$hole$ in prison. Kill them all: that's a criminal justice system that works. In the alternative, such people can be taken to either ocean and allowed to swim to the foreign destination of their choice.
THIS is SO untrue.
I did not help my buddy Johnny in almost any of the killings. Sure I was "around" when some "stuff" went down. But that third kid... I mean, Come on..... he was like, runnin out the door. What was I supposed to do? Plus, the other guy, he deserved it, he was an idiot.
Anyways, Im not concerned cause even if the Cops do find out the truth, Im living in Daytona Beach, under the name Jerry Lancaster. They will never find me here cause, like, I died my hair, and got a job at the Walmart on Southern Blvd, as the Receiving Clerk. They have absolutely NO idea that the Red 1983 Z-28 with Florida tag #ADW-14B is mine.
I like this...HA HA HA HA HA..unbelievable....
It's Bozo
Too many weirdos out there. It is better never to go into someones home unless you know them. Being out at night alone is very risky! One thing a poster said above is true and cause for alarm - the police are out for profit or to enforce their bullying nature. They did not follow-up on the reports because they were simply not interested. It is a sad thing to say, but a large percentage of the police today are not there to help you, but to ruin you! Look at all of the innocent death-row inmates who had to be released after being proved "not guilty." Is that reliable police work?? They were seeking promotions, pay increases and recognition. Their innocent victims were of NO concern to them! How many of these police and prosecutors were punished for the false convictions?? Does anyone know?
I agree that police and the structure they work for do more harm than good. As a parent I have found it necessary to guard my children from criminals AND from law enforcement. Government seeks more and more control over citizens at the expense of the job they are SUPPOSED to be doing, serving and protecting.
It is indeed a bafflement and a frustration to have any contact with our court system. One traffic ticket and the crap begins. Kadiddlehopper said it all. You can keep your police protection and give me a big dog and a .357. Was it Anthony Burgess who said "We sleep unafraid because we know that rude men stand ready to do violence on our behalf" ?
Whatever. Thanks. I'll do violence on my OWN behalf.
its called creating evidence, like mark furman and the o.j. trial, you know a suspect is guilty , andhaveto create a case against them, alot of law enforcement does this even if they know they are making it up they know that the suspect has committed other crimes and never got caught. so in turn the suspect who got away with other crimes now will be serving time for being a criminal ,,who you gonna believe a cop, prosecuter, or the criminal either way you look at it , it appears to be some what of a way to control the population
let god sort them out.
The question I would pose would be why has he not killed again. Even in the crimes that he has been convicted of he has not killed. If he only did it for the money it would only make sense that he would again commit the crime. I think Gacy acted alone the guy might have dug the trench for him but I do not think he had anything to do with the bodies.
All killers should be executed as quick as Gacy was. They didn't waste much time on his crazy ass.
MIcahel J. Rossi and David F. Cram murdered a lot of people at Deep Quarry in Dupage County. Cram hung himself in 2001 but Rossi is still alive and a full blown lifetime pedophile. The facts behind what happened in that quarry is so unbelievable that nobody will ever believe what the police did to cover this up. The 2012 police need to go out and arrest Michael J. Rossi. The police need to realize that the cat is out of the bag and it is time to move on and tell the truth. Sheriff John Zaruba and Tom Dart this is not 1979 anymore. People don't care about 33 year old loopholes but they do care about mass murderers still being protected by dirty little government secrets. search shadowreports.com "postings of none"