The Man Who Killed Boys (12 page)

Gacy valued his good relationship with the neighbors and worked earnestly to keep it friendly. Lillie once peered out her front window and observed him preparing to pour a huge concrete square in his front yard next to their driveway.

"Ed, do you see what John's doing out there?" she called to her husband, pointing at their neighbor.

Ed Grexa peered out the window. "He can't do that," he exclaimed. A decorative boulder in a front yard next door to your home is one thing. An ugly concrete block is another. Grexa walked out of the house to confront his neighbor. Gacy smiled when he saw his friend approaching.

"John, that's no good," Grexa said, pointing to the concrete form and shaking his head.

The creases in Gacy's forehead bunched in a surprised frown. "Oh?" he replied, easing the sack of cement he had just lifted uncertainly to the ground. "Okay, Ed, if you don't want it there. Look, do you want the cement? Maybe you can use it to fill holes in the driveway or something?" An hour later the forms had been dismantled and Gacy was putting the lumber and equipment away in his shed.

A more volatile threat to their friendship occurred when Gacy had a falling out with the Grexa's only son. Ron Grexa was in his early twenties when he started working for Gacy. It was a difficult period in young Grexa's life. His marriage had just broken up, he had lost his home and his business, and he was coping with other serious problems when he moved back in with his parents and an opportunity presented itself to work for their friendly neighbor. Mrs. Grexa wasn't unhappy about the prospect of her son living at home and working next door. It would give her and her husband a chance to provide loving support while he tried to reorganize his life.

He was startled one morning when she asked him about a telephone conversation he was having with a friend. Mother and son were sitting across a table from each other when he said to his friend, "Oh, I told him he couldn't afford me."

"You mean John," his mother grinned, breaking into the conversation and bending her wrist so that her hand flopped limply, in a cruel caricature of an overt homosexual.

"Yeah. How'd you know, Mom?" Ron asked surprised.

"Oh, I just kind of suspected as much," she snickered. It was funny how children believed that the mere fact of becoming a parent somehow removed mothers and father from what went on in the world.

Ron conceded that he had been propositioned by his boss, but his mother didn't worry about it. He was a strong boy who knew right from wrong and could take care of himself. She had no doubts that her son was firmly heterosexual.

She was more concerned some time later when he stalked into the house, slamming the back door and announcing angrily that he was going to burn Gacy's house down.

The Grexas were sensitive about the subject of fires. Their own house had been seriously damaged by flames only a few months earlier. Unknown to them, the wood beneath their furnace had dried out. When the heat was turned on during the first chill of the fall the wood ignited. The flames spread and did so much damage that the family had to move into a motel for several weeks while repairs were made.

Lillie Grexa was upset when her son threatened to burn their neighbor's home, even though he had some justification for being angry. His rage had nothing to do with his boss's sexual activities, but was caused by Gacy's refusal to pay him for work he had done. "John, if you don't pay me," Ron had warned, "I'm gonna burn your house down."

Gacy didn't appreciate the threat, and he called the police. Officers talked to young Grexa the same day and cooled him down, while helping to work out the dispute about the pay.

When Gacy knocked on his neighbor's door to apologize for reporting their son, the Grexas accepted his apology. He explained that just in case the threat was carried out he had wanted the report on record with the police. The Grexas didn't permit the incident to damage their friendship.

Gacy didn't show any signs of missing their son as an employee. There were other athletic young men available to work for him. One after another they showed up at his house for a while, leaving early in the mornings with him in his car or van on their way to jobs. After a time they disappeared and were replaced by other young men.

John Butkovich was one of those who vanished. He worked approximately seven months for Gacy. Then, like Ron Grexa, he quarreled with his boss about his pay. That wasn't unusual. Gacy had tangles about money with several of the young men who worked for him. He wasn't as generous with his pay as he was about hosting big parties, loaning his car, and doing favors for neighbors and township Democrats.

For one thing, he paid his young employees only for the time they were actually on the job, even though it might be necessary for them to spend half their time traveling from one work site to another.

Ed Grexa was appalled when he heard what Gacy was doing. "John, you can't do that," he said. "When we start a job in the morning, regardless of whether or not we go to four or five jobs in a day, we're paid from the time we start out until the time we're finished at night." Gacy winked at him and conspiratorially touched a finger to his lips. "Shhh," he whispered.

He knew how to get a good day's work from his young charges. He drove them hard and the sweat popped out on their lean bodies, running down suntanned backs and chests in salty rivulets as the boys struggled to carry huge armloads of boards and two-by-fours, wrestled heavy paint cans out of trucks and vans, or smacked armies of nails into fresh wood paneling. There was no sitting down to smoke cigarettes when they were on the job. Too often they were rewarded with problems about their pay. Gacy developed a wretched reputation for withholding money, especially if a boy quit or was fired.

Marko and Terezia Butkovich were surprised when their son came home one day and said he was going to look for a new job. The boy grumbled that Gacy was no good and was a liar. He wasn't going to work for PDM Contractors anymore. It wasn't because his boss didn't have work. It seemed that there were almost enough projects at his house alone to keep a couple of boys busy full time.

One of Gacy's most ambitious undertakings at the little house on Summerdale Avenue had just been completed when he attached a storage shed to the end of his garage. It didn't bother him that his neighbors might consider it an eyesore and laugh at it as "a screwed-up looking thing." If his neighbors had wandered into the adjoining garage they would probably have thought it odd that he had installed mirrors in the ceiling. It was insulated with plywood and a dry wall.

When he had completed all his alterations, the garage was the only one on the block that didn't have the door at the end of the driveway where the interior was visible from the street. It was necessary to make an awkward sharp right turn to drive through the door. With the addition of the attached shed, the garage was also the only one on the block that covered the entire back section of the lot.

Gacy spent hours working in the garage and so needed the extra space that the shed provided. The garage and shed were his private areas. If the house was considered to be his wife's domain, the shed and garage were his. Soon after the shed was constructed, he outfitted it with a durable concrete floor like the one that Czarna had poured for the garage. Dirt had already been turned over and the surface prepared when Czarna arrived to pour the concrete.

"This would be a helluva place to put bodies," Czarna joshed as he spread the cement. Gacy didn't laugh.

Butkovich didn't mention his former boss again until several days later when he began to complain that Gacy hadn't mailed him a check for his last two weeks' work. Marko Butkovich told his son to advise the stocky contractor that if he didn't pay, authorities would be tipped off that he wasn't deducting taxes from earnings as he was required to do by law. Johnny and two of his buddies, Robert Otera and Joseph Meronicki, went to Gacy's house to collect.

There was a fierce argument. When Johnny mentioned the tax deductions Gacy began screaming and warning him not to make threats. The boys gave up and left, and soon afterward Johnny dropped his pals off and drove away in his Dodge. It was August 1, 1975.

He didn't come home that night. The Butkovichs are old country in some ways, and they raised their children to respect them and their feelings. The parents provided a good home, and in return the children were home on time for meals, helped with the chores around the house, and made a habit of keeping their elders informed of their whereabouts when they were away. It wasn't like Johnny to stay out all night or to go somewhere without letting his parents know his plans.

He had decided to move into one of the apartments his parents owned, and it was said that Gacy had even begun to help him redecorate before their falling out. The boy spent two thousand dollars on carpeting alone. But even though he was planning to move, while he was still living at home he wouldn't stay out all night without first telephoning his parents.

The next day his 1968 Dodge was found parked about a block away with the key in the ignition. His jacket and wallet with forty dollars in it were on the seat. The elder Butkovichs were certain that something was seriously wrong. They contacted the police and reported their son missing.

Seventeen-year-old boys and girls in the greater metropolitan Chicago area leave home every day without telling their parents when or where they are going. Most of them return home when they run out of money, get hungry, or when friends who are sheltering them tire of the freeloading and kick them out.

The report on the Butkovich boy didn't sound much different from those of other teenagers who had gotten itchy feet and left home. It sounded like he was a runaway, police told the worried parents. And if so there was nothing they could legally do to make him come home, even if they found him. According to Illinois law, boys and girls are no longer classed legally as juveniles when they reach seventeen. At seventeen they are considered to be minors, old enough to leave home if they wish.

Marko Butkovich got upset. The more excited he gets, the heavier his accent becomes. The conversation with police was going nowhere. It was obvious that the police weren't going to look for the boy, even though the parents were certain that he had gotten into trouble. Considering their son to be a runaway didn't make sense to either parent. If he had run away, the worried father argued, he would surely have taken his wallet and jacket with him. But there was no reason for him to run away. He had a loving relationship with his family, friends, money in the bank, and a car of his own. It was a good life for a teenager and there was nothing to run from.

Butkovich telephoned Gacy. The husky contractor said he was sorry to hear that the boy was missing and asked if there was anything he could do to help. There were other contacts with police by Marko Butkovich, urging them to look for his son and to talk to the contractor who had quarreled with the boy over a paycheck. Police told him that they tried to talk to Gacy and he refused to answer their questions.

About a month after their son disappeared, the Butkovichs received a collect call from Puerto Rico and a woman told them that Johnny was living there. Then she hung up. The Butkovichs told police about the anonymous tip, but later worried that it may have hindered the investigation by opening up false leads.

Every week for more than two years Butkovich telephoned police, often asking if they had talked again to Gacy. Eventually police quit answering his calls. Investigators were later to complain that Butkovich didn't give Gacy's name to them until two weeks after the boy had disappeared.

Terezia Butkovich was heavyhearted and puzzled that police could accept the disappearance of her son so lightly. Her husband was more frustrated and angry than puzzled. His son was missing and the police wouldn't look for him.

He telephoned Gacy several more times but there was never any news about the missing boy. Gacy always said he hadn't heard from him and apologized for not being able to help. Johnny Butkovich wasn't seen in the neighborhood, and to his friends he seemed to have suddenly vanished from the face of the earth.

Police moved on to other more pressing investigations, and Gacy continued with the business of running PDM Contractors. He knew how to bring work into the company and he knew how to satisfy his customers. Most of the people he worked for were pleased with his efforts to do a good job.

One businessman whose shop was remodeled by Gacy met him after a general contractor selected PDM to subcontract much of the work. Gacy impressed the businessman with his diligence and speed. He worked on the job with a crew that ranged in size from two to ten other men of varying ages. Some of the more skilled workers were over forty years old, but there were others who were younger and handled the menial labor.

The shopkeeper was more impressed with the efficiency and speed with which the jobs were handled than by the age of the construction crew. Gacy got the right people for the job and he held time down to a minimum.

Regardless of how busy Gacy became, he always had time to do little jobs in the neighborhood and to take care of the projects that kept coming up around the house. It was still Gacy who showed up with a plow after heavy snows and, unbidden and unpaid, cleaned neighboring walks. It was also Gacy who gave away valuable buckets of paint left over from remodeling jobs. And it was Gacy who showed up at the Grexa's back door with an armload of expensive leftovers after hosting another of his parties. He had added Christmas parties for his employees to the popular summer soirees and smaller dinners that he and Carole were becoming locally famous for. He habitually ordered and prepared too much food.

Lillie Grexa shook her head one evening when she answered a knock at the back door and was confronted by her neighbor, balancing a huge tray in his arms stacked high with sliced beef, corned beef, and turkey.

"Can you use it?" he asked, grinning and pushing the tray toward her.

"You're darned right we can use it," she replied, looking down on at least thirty dollars worth of meat. "How much do you want for it?"