Oprah Winfrey’s guests on July 9, 2010 were relatives of infamous criminals: mass murderer, Jim Jones and serial killer, John Wayne Gacy. This article is about Karen, John Wayne Gacy’s sister.
Read about Jim Jones, Jr.’s appearance in the first segment here.
John Wayne Gacy’s younger sister, Karen, appeared in the second segment of Oprah Winfrey’s show on July 9, 2010. Her married last name was not revealed on the show and she said none of her neighbors know who she is (yet). They know her by her married last name and that she works hard in the community but they don’t know that she is the sister of notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who raped and killed at least 33 people.
Karen said she’d like to talk about her brother as she knew him. John was a kind and loving brother, an uncle to her children who loved him dearly. No one had a clue that he was abducting teenage boys and young men, murdering them and he was doing it for years, until someone told the police that John Wayne Gacy was the last person a missing 15 year old boy was seen with.
Karen detailed their childhood, with a father who belittled John when he was drunk, calling him a “sissy.” She said her brother felt that he never lived up to his father’s expectations all the way up to his adulthood, but John did marry and have a child. She did not mention any of their father’s physical abuse that John Wayne Gacy talked about himself to interviewers.
About a year after his first marriage, Gacy was arrested in Waterloo, Iowa and accused of sodomy of a minor. Karen said Gacy always insisted he was innocent and told his family he had been framed, and she said: “At that time, I believed him.” She stops and thinks sometimes that if they hadn’t been so “believable,” perhaps the rest of John Wayne Gacy’s life might not have turned out the way it did. (Don’t get mad at me, that is what she said.)
Oprah knew that Karen visited John at his home regularly before his arrest. Oprah asked her if she ever noticed any strange smells, but Karen said the home always had a musty smell. She didn’t believe her brother committed the horrible crimes he was accused of when John Wayne Gacy’s attorney called her in 1978 to tell her what her brother was being charged with. She spoke to John at the time. He admitted he was guilty. Gacy later recanted his confession to the police, but his sister says during their prison visits, he admitted to her that he had killed “one or two,” while trying to deny the others.
Karen says that John Wayne Gacy did not kill or torture animals and she had no knowledge of her brother being bisexual or homosexuality. Oprah asked how that could be when he had gone to jail for sodomy long before the discovery of the bodies under his home. She said she believed the incident was “consensual.” She did see her brother appearing to participate in couple-swapping at an event once, but he explained that away as “no big deal.” Her mother told her later on that John Wayne Gacy had been molested although Karen noted that this did not excuse his crimes, and she didn’t know why her mother told her that. If everybody who was molested ended up killing people and putting them in their crawl space,” Oprah said, “we wouldn’t have a world.” Karen agreed.
Oprah talked with Karen about the hours before Gacy’s execution on May 10, 1994. Karen said leaving the prison and looking back, knowing she would never see her brother again “was really really hard, the whole situation was a nightmare …” She said she later saw one of the prosecutors on TV saying: “it was the greatest day in the world and it was really one of the worst days in the world” for me.” No one ever called to say they were sorry for her loss. She spent the last day of his life with him and believes that he was at peace because he told her he would rather be dead than spend the rest of his life in prison. A photo of Karen and John hugging hours before the execution was shown and Karen said people may wonder how she could hug him but “he was my brother.” She never knew the evil part of him, but she hates that part of him. She regrets that she never was able to speak to the families of the victims because the attorneys would not allow it.
Karen says she has never used her maiden name for 31 years and only just told her boss who she was a week or so ago . Her neighbors would find out she is John Wayne Gacy’s sister on TV if they watched this episode of Oprah Winfrey. They had another sister, Joanne, who passed away a few years ago. Karen said Joanne’s husband would not even allow her maiden name to be put on the death certificate.
Her last words to her brother was that she loved him and forgave him. She pointed out that she didn’t mean she forgave him for his crimes, but she was forgiving him for what he put their family through and the disgrace he brought upon them. Karen didn’t say what John Wayne Gacy’s last words were to her, but his last words to those present at his execution were “kiss my ass.”
Sources: Oprah Winfrey Show (7/9/2010)
originally aired 2/17/10
Clark Prosecutor: John Wayne Gacy Death Page
Also see Jim Jones’ Son on Oprah Winfrey
