The Killer Clown Returns: New Series Revisits America’s Most Chilling Monster—And Five Victims Still Have No Names

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy drops October 16 on Peacock. But decades after his execution, his darkest secrets still haunt us.

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On October 16, 2025, one of America’s most notorious serial killers will return to our screens, not in a documentary but in an eight-episode scripted drama that’s already generating massive buzz. Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy premieres exclusively on Peacock, promising to peel back the twisted layers of a man who murdered at least 33 young men and boys between 1972 and 1978, all while hiding behind the painted smile of Pogo the Clown.

But here’s what makes this case even more haunting: nearly 47 years after police discovered the crawl space horror beneath his suburban Chicago home, five of Gacy’s victims remain unidentified. Five families are still waiting for answers. Five young men are still just numbers in a case file.

And as true crime fans prepare to binge this highly anticipated series, the question remains—will we ever know all their names?

The Monster Next Door Who Made Children Laugh

John Wayne Gacy wasn’t supposed to be a monster. He was the guy you’d want living next door.

He ran a successful construction business, PDM Contractors. He was active in local Democratic politics, even meeting First Lady Rosalynn Carter and having his photo taken with her. He organized community events and fundraisers. On weekends, he’d dress up as Pogo the Clown or Patches the Clown to entertain sick children at hospitals and perform at charity events.

Picture this: a grown man in full clown makeup, face paint perfectly applied, bringing joy to kids battling cancer. Parents would thank him. Hospital staff would praise him. Nobody suspected that the same hands painting balloon animals were also strangling young men in his spare bedroom.

Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University who’s studied Gacy extensively, explains the duality:

“Gacy is the perfect example of compartmentalization. He genuinely seemed to enjoy being a clown, bringing happiness to children. But that persona also served as the ultimate mask—who would suspect a beloved community figure who volunteers with sick kids of being capable of such depravity?”

That’s what makes Gacy so terrifying. He wasn’t lurking in shadows. He was standing in broad daylight, shaking hands with politicians and making children smile, while 33 bodies slowly accumulated beneath his house.

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Six Years of Horror Hidden in Plain Sight

From 1972 to 1978, Gacy’s home at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue in Norwood Park Township, Illinois, became a graveyard. He would lure young men and teenage boys—many of them vulnerable, some homeless, others looking for work—to his home with promises of construction jobs or money.

What happened next was almost too horrific to comprehend.

Gacy would trick his victims into putting on handcuffs, telling them it was a magic trick. Once they were restrained, he would sexually assault them, torture them, and ultimately strangle them—sometimes using a makeshift garrote made from rope and a wooden board. He called it his “rope trick.”

He buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space beneath his house. Three more were buried on his property. Four bodies were dumped in the Des Plaines River when he ran out of room.

For six years, he did this. For six years, neighbors complained about a mysterious smell coming from his property—Gacy told them it was moisture buildup or a broken sewage pipe. For six years, the bodies piled up while Gacy hosted elaborate parties, threw neighborhood barbecues, and entertained children as a clown.

Carol Schweitzer, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, reflects on the systemic failures:

“What’s particularly devastating about this case is how many opportunities there were to stop him. Young men went missing. Families reported them. But because many of the victims were marginalized—runaways, sex workers, young gay men in the 1970s—their disappearances weren’t prioritized. That’s the real tragedy.”

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December 1978: When the Horror Was Finally Exposed

It took the disappearance of 15-year-old Robert Piest to finally bring Gacy down.

On December 11, 1978, Robert told his mother he was going to talk to a contractor about a summer job. That contractor was John Wayne Gacy. Robert never came home.

Unlike many of Gacy’s previous victims, Robert’s family immediately reported him missing and pushed hard for answers. Police began investigating Gacy, and what they discovered during surveillance was chilling: he was still actively looking for victims, even inviting young men to his home while under police watch.

On December 21, 1978, police obtained a search warrant. The moment they entered Gacy’s crawl space, the smell was overwhelming. They quickly discovered human remains. Then more remains. Then more.

Detective Rafael Tovar, one of the investigators who worked the original case, later described the scene:

“We knew something was wrong the moment we walked in. The smell… you never forget that smell. And then we started finding bodies. We’d think we found them all, and then we’d find another one. It just kept going.”

The excavation took months. The final body count: 33 confirmed victims. But investigators believe there could be more.

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The Peacock Series: Focusing on the Forgotten

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, premiering October 16, takes a different approach than most true crime retellings. Showrunner Patrick Macmanus made a deliberate choice to focus on the victims rather than glorifying the killer.

“We really, truly were trying to figure out a way to focus on the victims—what their lives were like and who they truly were, with no connective tissue to John Wayne Gacy at all,” Macmanus told Vanity Fair. “The ultimate goal was to ensure that when people left our show, they saw more than a name. They saw more than a number. They saw more than a life associated with this horrendous tragedy, with this absolutely evil man.”

The series won’t depict the actual murders. Instead, it weaves together the heartrending stories of the victims, explores the grief and trauma of their families, and exposes the systemic failures and societal prejudices that allowed Gacy to operate unchecked for so long.

Michael Chernus (Severance) leads the cast as Gacy, joined by Gabriel Luna (The Last of Us), James Badge Dale (1923), and This Is Us actors Michael Angarano and Chris Sullivan.

Macmanus and his team went to extraordinary lengths to reach out to victims’ families, digging through emails, phone numbers, and last known addresses to gauge their concerns and incorporate their insights. They even accessed unaired footage from the 2021 documentary series of the same name.

True crime expert and podcast host Sarah Weinman observes:

“There’s been a shift in how we tell these stories. Audiences are tired of serial killer worship. They want to know about the lives that were stolen, not just the monster who took them. If Peacock pulls this off, it could set a new standard for responsible true crime storytelling.”

The series has already generated significant buzz online, with true crime communities on Reddit and TikTok counting down the days until release. Pre-release social media engagement suggests this could be one of Peacock’s most-watched true crime projects of the year.

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Five Victims Still Waiting to Be Named

Here’s the part that should haunt every true crime enthusiast: five of Gacy’s 33 confirmed victims have never been identified.

Think about that for a moment. Five young men were murdered, their bodies recovered, their remains examined and documented—and yet, nearly 47 years later, nobody knows who they are. Five families somewhere might still be wondering what happened to their son, their brother, their friend, never knowing he’s been lying in Cook County’s morgue this entire time.

The Cook County Sheriff’s Office has been working tirelessly since 2011 to identify the remaining victims using advanced DNA technology and forensic genetic genealogy—the same techniques that helped solve the Golden State Killer case.

In 2021, they finally identified Victim No. 5 as Francis Wayne Alexander, a North Carolina man who had been missing for 43 years. His sister, Carolyn Sanders, never stopped looking for him. When she finally got the call, she said:

“I always wondered what happened to him. Now I know. Now I can lay him to rest properly.”

Three other previously unidentified victims have also been identified through DNA in recent years. But five remain nameless.

Sheriff Tom Dart, who has made identifying Gacy’s victims a personal mission, told reporters:

“These were somebody’s children. Somebody out there is still wondering what happened to them. We owe it to these victims and their families to never stop trying to give them their names back.”

The unidentified victims are referred to only by numbers: Victim 19, Victim 21, Victim 26, Victim 28, and Victim 30. They were young—likely teenagers or in their early twenties based on skeletal analysis. They died terrified and alone. And decades later, they’re still waiting for someone to call them by their real names.

Forensic genealogist Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, who works on cold cases, explains the challenge:

“In the 1970s, many young people were transient. They moved around, they didn’t stay in touch with family, record-keeping wasn’t what it is today. Add to that the fact that many of Gacy’s victims were marginalized—runaways, sex workers, young gay men who may have been estranged from their families—and you have a perfect storm for unidentified remains. But with modern DNA technology and genealogy databases, there’s real hope we can finally give these five young men their identities back.”

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The Chilling Details That Still Shock

Even decades later, the details of Gacy’s crimes remain almost incomprehensible in their brutality and calculation.

He would often dress as Pogo the Clown to lure victims, though not always. Sometimes he’d simply offer work. Other times, he’d cruise areas where young men congregated—bus stations, Greyhound terminals, areas known for male prostitution.

His youngest confirmed victim was 14-year-old Samuel Stapleton. His oldest was 21-year-old Russell Nelson. Most were between 15 and 19.

Gacy kept a “rope and board” torture device in his bedroom. He would show victims how to tie elaborate knots, then use those same knots to strangle them. Some victims were kept alive for hours, enduring repeated sexual assaults before finally being killed.

He buried the bodies methodically, often covering them with lime to speed decomposition and mask the smell. When his crawl space filled up, he started dumping bodies in the river under cover of darkness.

The most chilling detail? Gacy once told investigators that he would sometimes dig a grave in advance, then go out to find someone to fill it.

Retired FBI profiler John Douglas, who interviewed Gacy on death row, later wrote:

“Gacy felt no remorse. He saw his victims as objects, not people. He compartmentalized his life so completely that he could murder someone, bury them, then go upstairs and have dinner with his wife without a second thought. That level of dissociation is extremely rare, even among serial killers.”

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Why This Case Still Matters

John Wayne Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994. His last words were reportedly,

“Kiss my ass.”

But his case continues to resonate for several important reasons.

Second, it showed how easily a predator can hide behind a respectable facade. Gacy’s community standing, his political connections, his charitable work—all of it provided perfect cover. It’s a reminder that monsters don’t always look like monsters.

Third, it changed how law enforcement handles serial murder investigations. The scale of Gacy’s crimes and the years he went undetected led to improved communication between jurisdictions and better tracking of missing persons cases.

And finally, those five unidentified victims remind us that this isn’t ancient history. This is ongoing. There are still families waiting for answers, still young men who deserve to have their names spoken aloud.

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What to Expect from the Series

All eight episodes of Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy drop October 16, 2025, exclusively on Peacock.

Early reviews suggest the series successfully walks the difficult line between honoring victims and examining the systemic failures that allowed Gacy to kill for so long.

The show reportedly includes dramatic recreations of the investigation, interviews with victims’ families who agreed to participate, and scenes showing Gacy’s double life—the charming community leader by day, the calculating predator by night.

What it won’t include: gratuitous violence or explicit depictions of the murders themselves. Macmanus made clear that the goal is to humanize the victims, not to create shock value.

For true crime enthusiasts, this series promises to be both deeply unsettling and necessary viewing. For the families of the victims—especially those five still unidentified—it’s another chance to keep their loved ones’ cases in the public eye, hoping that maybe, finally, someone will come forward with information.