A chilling new docuseries probes whether John Wayne Gacy may have murdered more than the 33 victims he was convicted of killing.
John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise, released Thursday on Peacock, details the serial killer’s shocking crimes, which took place in suburban Chicago during the 1970s.
Gacy – who became known as the ‘serial killer clown’ due to his penchant for dressing up as a circus entertainer – lured his young male victims to his home, before raping, torturing and strangling them.
The remains of 29 victims were found at Gacy’s property. Four others were dumped in a nearby river.
The depravity of Gacy’s crimes shocked the nation, and he was executed in 1994 after spending more than a decade on death row.
But one detective who worked on the case tells producers of the new miniseries that there could be a dozen additional men who Gacy killed.
‘I firmly believe there’s more,’ retired Detective Rafael Tovar states in one episode of Devil In Disguise, streaming now on Peacock.
A chilling new docuseries probes whether John Wayne Gacy may have murdered more than the 33 victims he was convicted of killing. The six-part series, titled John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise, is streaming now on Peacock
10 of Gacy’s 33 confirmed victims are pictured.
Investigators carry the remains of a body found beneath the garage floor of the home of John Wayne Gacy on December 22, 1978. All up, 29 bodies were discovered on Gacy’s property
Tovar claims that he was transporting Gacy to prison in 1980 when he asked the serial killer about his victims.
‘Are there more?’ Tovar says he asked Gacy, who responded: ’45 sounds like a good number’.
When Tovar quizzed the killer on the whereabouts of the bodies of the additional victims, Gacy is alleged to have replied: ‘That’s your job. You’re the detectives. You got to find out.’
Tovar stated in the documentary: ‘We had 33 victims, so that would mean, obviously, there’s 12 more somewhere’.
The detective told producers that he spent enough time with Gacy to believe that he was telling the truth.
Meanwhile, Tovar, who retire from policing in 2009, spoke with Fox News about what he believes motivated Gacy to kill.
‘I think he liked the power to kill people, the power of death,’ he told the news network in an interview on Thursday.
‘It made him feel like a god. And I think that just got to him. And he was smart. He got away for a long time… It made him feel powerful.’
Retired Detective Rafael Tovar believes there could be 12 more victims – taking the total number of people Gacy killed to 45
Cook County Sheriff’s Police evidence technicians are seen removing of one of the 29 bodies that were found decomposed beneath the house and in the garage area of the home
The documentary additionally features never-before-seen footage of a jailhouse interview Gacy conducted in 1992, in which he denies he is a killer (pictured)
Tovar told Fox News that Gacy never showed remorse for his crimes and was ‘obviously a person who had no moral compass’.
‘I mean, killing someone for him was like how you would shoo a fly off of your food,’ Tovar stated.
‘It wasn’t something that affected him. When it came time to dig up the basement, I think he was more concerned about us messing up his carpet’.
Tovar also told LRM Online that Gacy was ‘an egomaniac’.
Devil In Disguise also includes audio of Gacy admitting to killing another victim – which would make 34 in total.
However, the documentary additionally features never-before-seen footage of a jailhouse interview Gacy conducted in 1992, in which he denies he is a killer.
But Gacy’s words in the interview ring hollow, as he had already admitted to killing the 33 people a decade earlier.
The grave of an unidentified victim of John Wayne Gacy is seen at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Forest Park, Illinois. Six of the 33 victims have not been identified
Of those 33 victims, six have still not been identified.
Tovar told Fox News that some of them are likely to have been ‘street guys and runaways’ whose families never knew they went missing.
According to prosecutors, Gacy – who worked as a building contractor – would lure young men to his home by impersonating a police officer or promising them construction work.
Once his victims were inside, he would usually put them in handcuffs, claiming he wanted to demonstrate a ‘trick’ he has learned as a clown.
When the young men were restrained, Gacy tortured and raped them, before strangling them with a knotted rope.
The identified victims were aged between 14 and 22.
The six-part series, titled John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise , details the serial killer’s shocking crimes, which took place in suburban Chicago during the 1970s