Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders by Terry Sullivan with Peter T. Maiken (1983)

Creepy Clown.  Boring Guy.
Review by Kim Cantrell

Would you believe in all the years I’ve been reading true crime I’ve never read the John Wayne Gacy story?

It’s true.

John Wayne Gacy is the man who is probably responsible for making millions of children and adults terrified of clowns. (You thought it was Stephen King’s Pennypincher from It, huh?)

A professed bisexual who committed only homosexual-related murders, Gacy was convicted in 1979 of killing 33 young men.

Illinois state’s attorney Terry Sullivan, with Peter T. Maiken, recalls the chilling discoveries in his 1983 book Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders.

I had seen the documentaries. I had heard the story plenty of times.

I finally decided to read a book about Gacy.

Unfortunately.

As is all too common when a book is written by someone involved with the case, the interesting story gets losts in an overindulgence of details; just as it did in this book.

Seldom is there a book where I can’t at least skim over the fluff and find the “good” parts, but Killer Clown wasn’t one of them.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t even finish the book. It was just too boring.

I will recommend that you completely Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders. There have been numerous other books written about Gacy and an untold number of movies/documentaries produced about the case, so you may want to try one of them; although I can’t vouch for their quality.

Or better yet, watch the A & E documenty that follows here: