Tracy Ullman: Chicago knows Jeffrey Epstein's game all too well thanks to John Wayne Gacy
The series reveals that Gacy — once thought to be a lone-wolf predator — was a convicted felon who served only two out of 10 years for sodomizing a state politician's son in Iowa and who had come into contact with police several times before his final arrest in December 1978.
Getting a pass for a pattern of illicit behavior is even more striking when we see the photo of Gacy with then-first lady Rosalynn Carter during spring 1978, taken just months before the remains of dozens of young men were found rotting under Gacy's house.
People later questioned how Gacy could have been wearing a Secret Service pin that allowed him access to the president's wife? It's because Gacy was the director of Chicago's Polish Constitution Day Parade. He was recommended for the job by Col. Jack Reilly, Mayor Richard J. Daley's right-hand man and leader of special events.
'John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise' also reveals that Gacy's prosecutors believed he may have had two accomplices, the late David Cram and Michael Rossi. When Rossi was arrested and confessed that he dug holes in Gacy's crawl space, former Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan showed up to represent him. Although Rossi went on to be convicted of other crimes, he was used by the prosecution as a witness against Gacy. The notion was that, as a teenager when he met Gacy, he had been groomed.
The parallels to Jeffrey Epstein are uncanny.
In March 2005, Epstein was accused by a 14-year-old girl of sexual abuse in his mansion, and a police investigation found several more girls who explained they had been abused with the same modus operandi. It was not until October 2005, under pressure to prevent further sexual abuse, that police finally searched his home. Several computers suspected of having child porn on them were missing, possibly due to a tip-off. Meanwhile, other accusers come forward, but Epstein remained free to do as he pleased.
Epstein was able to use his ill-gotten fortune to pay a dream team of attorneys and private detectives, who harassed already-traumatized accusers and their families. The court system should have been working on behalf of the young girls, but back door deals were made so Epstein served only 13 months in the private wing of Palm Beach County Jail. As a bonus, he received work release six days a week for 12 hours a day. It wasn't until 2019 that Epstein's connection to powerful political people was exposed.
A follow-up documentary to 'John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise' will premiere Aug. 17 on Investigation Discovery and HBO Max. It focuses on a sex trafficking ring in Houston. Titled 'The Serial Killer's Apprentice,' its centerpiece is 60 hours of interviews with Elmer Wayne Henley, an accomplice of businessman Dean Corll, who was known as the 'Candy Man' killer. Henley killed Corll in August 1973 and then led law enforcement to the remains of Corll's victims.
Henley, who was 14 when he met Corll, was groomed — much like Gacy's accomplices and Epstein's companion Ghislaine Maxwell, for that matter. After Corll's sudden death, another young man in Dallas who was supposed to be sent to 'work' for Corll alerted Dallas police that Corll was part of a sex trafficking ring whose leader was John David Norman. Norman's apartment was raided, and a massive amount of child pornography was discovered. Since child porn is big business, Norman posted bail, then went on the run to Chicago. It is here that he is linked to Gacy through one of Gacy's employees. Birds of a feather flock together, right?
If people are upset about Epstein right now, it's because they've seen this game before, and they're desperate to prevent more vulnerable children from being sucked into a machine in which the powerful are free to explore their perversions. The agencies meant to protect families are weaponized against them, and the media outlets broadcast messaging that makes anyone who questions the scenario a conspiracy theorist.
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