Indiana killings a reminder of John Wayne Gacy
As investigators in northwest Indiana try to sort out the details, the killing spree in which Darren Deon Vann is suspected is a reminder of some of the serial killers whose actions haunt this region.
Perhaps the most notorious of those killers was John Wayne Gacy, the child entertainer who became known as the "Killer Clown" for luring his victims into his home before killing them. Gacy was arrested in 1978 and was implicated in the murder of 33 men and boys.
Police came to his Chicago-area home after he became the suspect in a young man's disappearance. He invited the cops into his home for coffee, and they sniffed the distinct smell of a decaying body. Officers came back and found 29 victims in the crawlspaces of his home.
Like Vann, who was convicted in 2009 in Texas for aggravated rape, Gacy previously had trouble with the law for sex crimes. Hammond Police Chief John Doughty says Vann admitted to killing seven women in Indiana and suggested he's responsible for more. Investigators are looking into killings that date back to the 1990s.
"It could go back as far as 20 years based on some statements we have, but that has yet to be corroborated," Doughty said.
Gacy received a 10-year prison in term in 1968 for sexual assault of two teen boys, but he was released on parole in 1970. He was accused of sexually assaulting another teen in 1971, but charges were dropped when the victim didn't appear in court. He killed his first victim the following year.
Gacy was executed by lethal injection in 1994, but the dark memories are still raw for many in this region.
Musician Rob Zombie faced backlash when he recently opened a Gacy-themed room in his Great American Nightmare Haunted House in Villa Park, Ill.
"It's in very poor taste," Robert Egan, one of Gacy's prosecutors, told People magazine. "It's insensitive to the families."
