Dazed and Confused

Executed May 10, 1994 by Lethal Injection in Illinois


In 1978 I found out that two kids I had attended my high school with were found in the basement
of John Wayne Gacy's house on the NW side of Chicago. He was given a lethal injection. he was given plenty of sedatives and drugs to make him comfortable before the lethal injection was given. The process took less than 15 minutes.

Terry Schiavo, who may feel pain (we don't know), had her feeding tube removed, at the behest of her husband, a man who collected 1.2 million dollars from a malpractice insurance settlement. He has two children by another woman. He refuses to get a detailed analysis on Schiavo's current state.

Fair ? No, it is bullshit and immoral. You decide who "deserves" the painful death: Schiavo or Gacy. Schiavo's only crime was to have heart failure. It may take up to two weeks to slowly make her die of dehydration.



Doctor describes process of dehydration

"What will probably kill Terri is dehydration because it's much quicker than starvation," Stevens said. "To starve to death takes eight to 12 weeks. You can die of dehydration in anywhere from three to five days to two weeks."



Initial effects of the lack of hydration will include:

Extreme thirst;
Nausea and cramping;
Dry skin, becoming wrinkled as fluids are drawn from the skin to hydrate the organs.

"She's likely to become dizzy and begin to have cramping in her arms and legs. That's because her electrolytes, her sodium, potassium and other electrolytes in her blood start getting out of whack because of lack of fluids."

Terri's body will experience other effects due to the forced dehydration that many might not have been considered.

"She'll see decreased secretions. If she tries to cry, she won't be able to make tears very well, if at all," Stevens said. "Her mouth will become dry and saliva thick. You can have cracking of the [mucous membranes] of the mouth and lips as they dry out."

Those external symptoms of dehydration are accompanied by internal effects, as well.

"People often get headaches, then [become] lethargic and finally go into coma," Stevens continued. "It actually can cause seizures.

"As it progressively gets worse, what happens [are] the physical signs. Her blood pressure will drop, her heart rate will pick up. She'll actually, ultimately go into shock," Stevens explained. "You just don't have enough fluid to keep your blood pressure up, and it drops so low, and that sometimes can be a terminal event, or an arrhythmia of her heart.

"Her blood will get thicker," Stevens continued. "Sometimes, people who are severely dehydrated will actually have strokes just because the blood gets so thick that it clots. It's not a pretty picture."

Which of these symptoms Terri experiences and to what degree will depend on whether the hospice staff makes any attempt to hydrate her by mouth and whether she is offered any pain medication.

"If they sedate her, she could be semi-conscious or unconscious while this is going on," Stevens said. "It's not a very pleasant experience, unlike what the Hemlock Society and other groups try to make you believe."

Stevens explained that he had "had a little bit of experience" in this particular field "since I worked in Africa for 11 years with severely dehydrated people, especially kids."

Starvation, Stevens said, is not really an issue for Terri.

"It's a long process that, depending on what condition people are in when it begins, determines how long it's going to take," Stevens said. "But if you're not getting fluids, it's academic interest. Before you starve to death, you'll die of dehydration."



From:
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/gacy237.htm
Death Count

On Friday, December 22, 1978, Gacy finally confessed to police that he killed at least thirty people and buried most of the remains of the victims beneath the crawl space of his house. According to the book Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders by Sullivan and Maiken, Gacy said that, "his first killing took place in January, 1972, and the second in January, 1974, about a year and a half after his marriage." He further confessed that he would lure his victims into being handcuffed and then he would sexually assault them. To muffle the screams of his victims, he would stuff a sock or underwear into their mouths and kill them by pulling a rope or board against their throats, as he raped them. Gacy admitted to sometimes keeping the dead bodies under his bed or in the attic for several hours before eventually burying them in the crawl space.

On the first day that the police began their digging, they found two bodies. One of the bodies was that of John Butkovich who was buried under the garage. The other body was the one found in the crawl space. As the days passed, the body count grew higher. Some of the victims were found with their underwear still lodged deep in their throats. Other victims were buried so close together that police believed they were probably killed or buried at the same time. Gacy did confirm to police that he had on several occasions killed more than one person in a day. However, the reason he gave for them being buried so close together was that he was running out of room and needed to conserve space.

On the 28th of December, police had removed a total of twenty-seven bodies from Gacy’s house. There was also another body found weeks earlier, yet it was not in the crawl space. The naked corpse of Frank Wayne "Dale" Landingin was found in the Des Plaines River. At the time of the discovery police were not yet aware of Gacy’s horrible crimes and the case was still under investigation. But, investigators found Landingin’s driver’s license in Gacy’s home and connected him to the young mans murder. Landingin was not the only one of Gacy’s victims to be found in the river.

Also, on December 28th, police removed from the Des Plaines River the body of James "Mojo" Mazzara, who still had his underwear lodged in his throat. The coroner said that the underwear stuffed down the victim's throat had caused Mazzara to suffocate. Gacy told police that the reason he disposed of the bodies in the river was because he ran out of room in his crawl space and because he had been experiencing back problems from digging the graves. Mazzara was the twenty-ninth victim of Gacy’s to be found, yet it would not be the last.

By the end of February, police were still digging up Gacy’s property. They had already gutted the house and were unable to find anymore bodies in the crawl space. It had taken investigators longer than expected to resume the search due to bad winter storms that froze the ground and the long process of obtaining proper search warrants. However, they believed there were still more bodies to be found and they were right. While workmen were breaking up the concrete of Gacy’s patio, they came across another horrific discovery. They found the body of a man still in good condition preserved in the concrete. The man wore a pair of blue jeans shorts and a wedding ring. Gacy’s victims no longer included just young boys or suspected homosexuals, but now also married men. The following week another body was discovered.

The thirty-first body to be found linked to Gacy was in the Illinois River. Investigators were able to discover the identity of the young man by a "Tim Lee" tattoo on one of his arms. A friend of the victim's father had recognized the "Tim Lee" tattoo while reading a newspaper story about the discovery of a body in the river. The victim's name was Timothy O’Rourke, who was said to be such a fan of Bruce Lee’s that he took the Kung Fu master's last name and added it to his own name in his tattoo. It is possible that Gacy had become aquatinted with the young man in one of the gay bars in New Town.

Yet, another body was found on Gacy’s property around the time O’Rourke was discovered and pulled from the river. The body was located beneath the recreation room of Gacy’s house. It would be the last body to be found on Gacy’s property. Soon after the discovery, the house was destroyed and reduced to rubble. Unfortunately, among the thirty-two bodies that were discovered that of Robert Piest was still unaccounted for. Piest was still missing.

Finally in April 1979, the remains of Robert Piest were discovered in the Illinois River. His body had supposedly been lodged somewhere along the river making it difficult to find his body. However, strong winds must have dislodged the corpse and carried it to the locks at Dresden Dam where it was eventually discovered. Autopsy reports on Piest determined that he had suffocated from paper towels being lodged down his throat. The family soon after filed a $85-million suit against Gacy for murder and the Iowa Board of Parole, the Department of Corrections and the Chicago Police Department for negligence. Police investigators continued to match dental records and other clues to help identify the remaining victims who were found on Gacy’s property. All but nine of the victims were finally identified. Although the search for the dead had finally come to an end, Gacy’s trial was just beginning.

During a review of the items confiscated from Gacy’s house, investigators soon realized that they had unknowingly seized a piece of critical evidence. One of the rings found at Gacy’s house belonged to another teenager who had disappeared a year earlier. With this new information, investigators began to realize the possible enormity of the case that was unfolding before them. Following the discovery of their new information, it was not long before investigators were able to obtain a second search warrant for Gacy’s home.

On Dec. 22, 1978, Gacy, realizing that his dark secrets were about to be exposed, confessed to police, telling them that he had murdered approximately 33 young men over the past seven years. He also drew them a detailed map to the locations of 28 shallow graves under his house and garage. Further he admitted to dumping five others into the Des Plaines River. Gacy told detectives, "There are four Johns." He later explained that there was John the contractor, John the clown, and John the politician. The fourth person went by the name of Jack Hanley. Jack was the killer and did all the evil things.

Gacy’s murder trial began Feb. 6, 1980, in the Cook County Criminal Courts Building in Chicago. During the five-week trial the prosecution and the defense called more than 100 witnesses to testify. The defense strategy was to establish that Gacy was insane and out of control at the time of the killings. To bolster this claim the defense put on the stand psychiatrists who had interviewed Gacy prior to trial. After the closing arguments, the jury deliberated for only two hours before finding Gacy guilty of murdering 33 people.

On March 13, 1980, Gacy was sentenced to die. Gacy was transported to Menard Correctional Center in Illinois. He would remain there for just over 14 years until he was transported to the Statesville Penitentiary near Joliet for execution.

On May 9, 1994, Gacy sat down for his last meal: fried chicken, French fries, Coke and strawberry shortcake. Prison officials later described his demeanor as "chatty . . . talking up a storm." In a phone interview shortly before his execution, he told a Knight-Tribune reporter, "There's been 11 hardback books on me, 31 paperbacks, two screenplays, one movie, one off-Broadway play, five songs, and over 5,000 articles. What can I say about it?" But of course, he quickly protested, "I have no ego for any of this garbage."

Just after midnight on May 10, 1994, Gacy was executed by lethal injection. For his last words, Gacy snarled, ''Kiss my ass.''