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Speaker 1: Sixteen year old Timothy Jack McCoy spend Christmas nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: one at his aunt and uncle's home in Michigan. After

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Speaker 1: some quality time surrounded by his cousins, ringing in the

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Speaker 1: new year with them, he left on January two, nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two, planning to jump on a bus at the

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Speaker 1: local Greyhound station back to his dad's house in Nebraska.

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Speaker 1: In the early hours of January three, Timothy had made

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Speaker 1: it to Chicago. It's cold, and Timothy is waiting for

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Speaker 1: his connecting bus, which won't arrive for another twelve hours.

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Speaker 1: He's wandering around killing time when a man pulls up

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Speaker 1: to the curb and offers him a scenic tour of

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Speaker 1: the city to fill in the layover. When Timothy says

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Speaker 1: he's hungry, the man offers to take him back to

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Speaker 1: his place for food. He would never leave. Fourteen years later,

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Speaker 1: Timothy's family would receive the phone call they'd been waiting for.

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Speaker 1: Police finally knew what had happened to him. Their relief, though,

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Speaker 1: would be short lived, when they found out that Timothy

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Speaker 1: had fallen victim to the killer clown. I'm Claire Murphy

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Speaker 1: and this is true crime. Conversations, a podcast exploring the

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Speaker 1: world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who

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Speaker 1: know the most about them while he was victim one.

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Speaker 1: Timothy's story is shared in episode six of the new

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Speaker 1: Binge series The Devil in Disguise John Wayne Gacy. The

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Speaker 1: story follows the nineteen seventy eight arrest of Gaysey after

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Speaker 1: investigating the disappearance of another young boy under the floorboards

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Speaker 1: of his home. Buried in the crawl space or the

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Speaker 1: bodies of twenty six boys and young men. Three more

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Speaker 1: would be found buried in the backyard. One of them

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Speaker 1: was known unofficially as Greyhound Busboy. That's how Gaysey referred

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Speaker 1: to him. Officially, he was body nine, with eight bodies

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Speaker 1: having been pulled from the dirt below Gasey's home before him,

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Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be until nineteen eighty six that body

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Speaker 1: number nine would be formally identified through dental records as

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Speaker 1: Timothy McCoy. In episode two, We Meet Johnny Sick. He

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Speaker 1: disappeared in January nineteen seventy seven. Police are unsure what

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Speaker 1: led him to come into contact with Gaysey, but they

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Speaker 1: found his high school ring in Gasey's home. Episode three,

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Speaker 1: We meet Samuel Stapleton and Randy Reffert. Samuel's one of

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Speaker 1: Gasey's youngest victims. Randall went missing just a day after Samuel.

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Speaker 1: His identity was confirmed from X rays on Christmas Day,

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Speaker 1: three years after he went missing. In episode four, we

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Speaker 1: meet Billy Kindred and Greg Godzig. Billy was a bit

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Speaker 1: of a bad boy, but he'd met the girl who

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Speaker 1: would help him turn that around.

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Speaker 2: Greg worked for Gaysey.

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Speaker 1: He left for a date with his girlfriend in December

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, but never returned home. In episode five,

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Speaker 1: we meet Billy Carroll, Dale Landigan and Robert Donnelly, one

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Speaker 1: of Gasey's seven known survivors, and yes, Robert Donnelly survived Gaysey,

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Speaker 1: but he's not sure why. The then nineteen year old

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Speaker 1: was waiting at a bus stop when Gasey pulled up

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Speaker 1: in a black car, claiming to be a police officer.

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Speaker 1: He asked to see his ID, and as he stepped

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Speaker 1: closer to show it, Gasey pulled gunn ordering him to

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Speaker 1: get in, and handcuffed him. Robert was He was actually

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Speaker 1: assaulted several times in Gasey's home before he was told

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Speaker 1: that he was about to take his last ride, Gaysey

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Speaker 1: asking how it felt, knowing he was going to die,

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Speaker 1: but instead Gasey let him go, telling Robert that no

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Speaker 1: one would believe him if he told anyone about it,

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Speaker 1: and he was right. Police did take Gaysey in for questioning, However,

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Speaker 1: he claimed it was all consensual, describing the encounter as

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Speaker 1: a game of sexual slavery, saying Robert probably reported him

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Speaker 1: because he didn't pay him for it. Prosecutors declined to

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Speaker 1: pursue the case. This wouldn't be the first or even

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Speaker 1: the last time Gasey was questioned by police only to

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Speaker 1: be let go. In episode six, we meet Timothy, who

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Speaker 1: we revealed as Gaysey's first victim, John Bukovich and Robert Peaste.

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Speaker 1: In episode seven, we meet Jeff Rignell. Jeff, who was

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Speaker 1: in a happy thropple relationship with his boyfriend and girlfriend,

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Speaker 1: came across Gaysey while walking to a gay bar in

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Speaker 1: March nineteen seventy eight. Gasey offered him a ride and

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Speaker 1: a joint to lure him into his car and out

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Speaker 1: of the cold, then used a rag so in chloroform

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Speaker 1: to drug him into submission. Jeff woke up in Gaysey's house,

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Speaker 1: tied to a tortured device made of a wooden board

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Speaker 1: and chains, and naked Gaysey standing in front of him.

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Speaker 1: He was then subjected to hours of rape, torture, and

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Speaker 1: physical assaults. He also claims there was another man present

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Speaker 1: at some stage who also took part. He passed out

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Speaker 1: again and awoke under the statue of Alexander Hamilton in

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Speaker 1: Chicago's Lincoln Park. He told police everything, but they didn't

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Speaker 1: believe him. He took on the investigation himself and eventually

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Speaker 1: found Gaysey. Taking his details to investigators, they were slow

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Speaker 1: to act, so when Rob Peacet went missing in December

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, Jeff's battery accusation against Gaysey had been filed,

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Speaker 1: but he was allowed to remain free. When Gaysey was

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Speaker 1: finally arrested and the bodies found in his home. The

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Speaker 1: reporting of Jeff's story motivated many young men to come forward,

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Speaker 1: who all shared similar stories. Devil in Disguise brings just

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Speaker 1: a and full of Gasey's thirty three victim stories to

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Speaker 1: light and the shortfall in.

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Speaker 2: Justice they each were handed.

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Speaker 1: As a director, it was Patrick McManus's job to do

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Speaker 1: these stories justice, and the way in which he chose

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Speaker 1: to tell them was the reason he finally said yes

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Speaker 1: to the project at all. He joins us now, Patrick,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today and for

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Speaker 1: sharing your insights on the creation of your TV series

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Speaker 1: of Devil in Disguise. Welcome to True Crime Conversations.

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Speaker 3: Thank you still very very much for having me. I

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Speaker 3: appreciate you taking the time.

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Speaker 1: I guess we need to start off by asking you

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Speaker 1: what allowed you eventually to say yes to this story?

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Speaker 1: Because I understand you knocked back making this series previously,

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Speaker 1: so what changed for you in order for you to

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Speaker 1: turn that into a yes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, You've done your research. I said no twice because

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Speaker 3: I just didn't understand what worth it was going to

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Speaker 3: be to do a serial killer show. Quite frankly, it

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Speaker 3: wasn't until I sort of stumbled on this idea of

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Speaker 3: telling the victim's story is that I realized that there

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Speaker 3: was a way into telling this differently. It was way

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Speaker 3: early in the process because I had turned it down,

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Speaker 3: as I said, a couple of times, and when they

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Speaker 3: came back the third time, they basically said, and these

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Speaker 3: are partners of mine. I've known them for years and

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Speaker 3: years and years, both at Universal Content and at peacock,

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Speaker 3: and there was what would it take? And I said,

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Speaker 3: well if I focus it not on Gaysey, And in

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Speaker 3: all honesty, I thought they were going to say no.

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Speaker 3: I thought they were going to be like, sorry, well

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Speaker 3: now move on. We've asked you three times. And when

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Speaker 3: they said yes, I honestly thought they were just shining

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Speaker 3: me on and telling me what I wanted to hear

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Speaker 3: and then they were going to like pull the rug

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Speaker 3: later and they never did. But I will say that

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Speaker 3: I had this like abstract idea of focusing on the victims,

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Speaker 3: the victims' families, the police, the lawyers, but I didn't

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Speaker 3: really understand how it worked until we came up with

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Speaker 3: this idea in the writer's room of the short we

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Speaker 3: called them short stories, where we would tell these stories

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Speaker 3: that were completely taken away from Gacy at all, and

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Speaker 3: that I keep saying it, it sort of fell into

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Speaker 3: perf clarity, like what the show was, what the north

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Speaker 3: star of the show was. And it's weird for me

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Speaker 3: to say this that it suddenly sort of became easy

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Speaker 3: to break to figure it out. So number one whatever,

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Speaker 3: like sort of little spark we got in the room

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Speaker 3: to figure that out. I'm very grateful four Number two.

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Speaker 3: I'm very grateful to the studio the network for taking

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Speaker 3: the chance on it and letting us explore it because

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Speaker 3: it was a swing.

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Speaker 1: Well, can we talk about that decision, because, I mean,

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Speaker 1: in making anything about John Wayne Gacy, you have endless

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Speaker 1: amounts of research material. There's the tapes that he openly

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Speaker 1: admitted to what he was doing to his legal team.

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Speaker 1: There are documentaries. There is the interview he did before

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Speaker 1: his execution from prison, like, there is books, there are

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Speaker 1: documentary like There's so much that you could lean on

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Speaker 1: for his story. But in choosing to focus more on

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Speaker 1: the victims, that would have been more difficult because their

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Speaker 1: stories and especially because Gaysey chose his victims for a reason,

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Speaker 1: A lot of them were from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. They were,

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Speaker 1: you know, from the LGBTQ community, like people whose lives

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Speaker 1: were not publicly available at the time. So how did

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Speaker 1: you piece their stories together like this?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean you sort of landed on it. I mean,

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Speaker 3: we did an immense amount of research, and that really

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Speaker 3: is always the first step in all of the shows

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Speaker 3: that I've done, outside of Happy and Homecoming, you know,

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Speaker 3: which didn't need it. But going back to Marco Polo,

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Speaker 3: which was the first show that I ran, like, I deeply,

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Speaker 3: deeply believe in research. And so not only did we

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Speaker 3: have the NBC News team which did the documentary, which

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Speaker 3: was spectacular, So we had a ton of research that

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Speaker 3: was both in the documentary and out of the documentary.

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Speaker 3: That's part one. Part two was as you said, there

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Speaker 3: are there are tons of books that we were able

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Speaker 3: to draw from as well that did begin to paint

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Speaker 3: a picture of the victims. Number three, we had depositions

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Speaker 3: and we had court testimony. I mean, like I'll use

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Speaker 3: even as you know in the Randy Reford Samuel Stapleton

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Speaker 3: story right the state that it was very famous that

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Speaker 3: he had had this bracelet that he had welded onto

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Speaker 3: his wrist, and that was we sort of got the

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Speaker 3: inspiration from that, very much from the fact that his

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Speaker 3: mother broke down on the stand and couldn't carry on.

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Speaker 3: They had to pause the proceedings. And so we then

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Speaker 3: also had this. We have an amazing researcher that I've

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Speaker 3: worked with on multiple shows named Patrick Murphy. He did

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Speaker 3: a deep, deep dive into whatever he could find on

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Speaker 3: the record and about each of the victims up to

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Speaker 3: an including he went to Chicago and he actually went

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Speaker 3: to the room that to this day holds all of

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Speaker 3: the Gacy files and dug through that and give it

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Speaker 3: give us a very deep dive of everything that was

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Speaker 3: in there. So we downloaded quite a bit of information

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Speaker 3: to be able to try to build these stories. And

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Speaker 3: at the end of the day they a lot of

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Speaker 3: it was as always inspired by right, like we were

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Speaker 3: not able to do. It isn't a documentary, and so

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Speaker 3: we were dramatizing within the body of it. And the

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Speaker 3: hope is is that when when people are wh watch it,

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Speaker 3: they realized that we're not going to get it all right,

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Speaker 3: but that we're trying to get the spirit of the

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Speaker 3: story and the spirit of their story as right as

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Speaker 3: we possibly could.

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Speaker 1: I understand that you did reach out to surviving members

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Speaker 1: of the victims' families as you were going through this

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Speaker 1: process of creating this series. That must be an incredibly

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Speaker 1: difficult thing to do. And secondly, what do you do

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Speaker 1: if they say, I don't want you to do this.

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Speaker 3: It's a really good question. Well, part one to your

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Speaker 3: question is I don't want to undersell or it. It

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Speaker 3: didn't feel difficult to do because it genuinely felt like

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Speaker 3: the right thing to do. And it's interesting early on

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Speaker 3: when we were discussing the reaching out to the family

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Speaker 3: members and our team at Universal were gathering whatever their

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Speaker 3: last known contact information was of their next of kin,

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Speaker 3: and quite frankly, we didn't get a ton back. Like

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Speaker 3: we'd sent out thirty letters and emails and phone I

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Speaker 3: made phone calls and we did reach out to every

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Speaker 3: last contact that they had, and we only heard back

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Speaker 3: from a handful of people. But in that time where

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Speaker 3: they were gathering the contact information, they were saying to me,

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Speaker 3: They're like, you know that it's very probable that they're

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Speaker 3: going to be upset at you. And I said, that's

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Speaker 3: the point, Like, the point is to open a dialogue.

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Speaker 3: And and while we were going to make the show,

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Speaker 3: and I was absolutely going to open open myself up

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Speaker 3: to any criticism or any perspective that was going to

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Speaker 3: come back my way. If someone said to me, I

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Speaker 3: definitely don't want you to focus on my on my

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Speaker 3: family member, we would have we would have adjusted. And

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Speaker 3: we did it early on in the process so that

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Speaker 3: they anyone that we did touch base with, had the

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Speaker 3: opportunity to say that to us. But we weren't necessarily

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Speaker 3: asking for permission. We were I was opening up a dialogue,

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Speaker 3: so they at least knew that they could have a

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Speaker 3: dialogue with us. And to me, I think that that's

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Speaker 3: that's that's important. And I'll go on the record as

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Speaker 3: saying that. I've said it before, and I'll say it again,

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Speaker 3: and I'll keep saying it. I know that we've probably

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Speaker 3: disappointed people like I am aware of that, and I

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Speaker 3: don't know if there is any way to work around it, right,

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Speaker 3: but I desperately want anyone who is listening to hear

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Speaker 3: me when I say that what I said before, that

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Speaker 3: we were trying to tell the story as best as

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Speaker 3: we could. We were trying to tell the story with

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Speaker 3: as much respect as we could, and for anybody that

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Speaker 3: we may have disappointed, I am immensely sorry. That was

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Speaker 3: never That's never my intent and I and what I

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Speaker 3: am proud of so far is that there seems that

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Speaker 3: people seem to be getting it like they you know,

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Speaker 3: I don't know if the family members are, but like

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Speaker 3: for the first time in my career, people are really

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Speaker 3: getting what we were trying to do. And that I'm

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Speaker 3: so proud of our writers first and our director and

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Speaker 3: our actors, because everyone went in with a very open

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Speaker 3: heart and a desire to get this as right as possible.

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Speaker 2: Whose story did you tell first when you were making it.

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Speaker 3: In terms of the in terms of the victims, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it was Johnny Sick. It was, And that was very

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Speaker 3: purposeful because in the pilot I had written in his

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Speaker 3: high school ring without knowing who it was, and so

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Speaker 3: we knew that which was real. They found that in

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Speaker 3: Casey's attic, and so we knew that Episode two was

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Speaker 3: going to be focused on Tovar going on that journey

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Speaker 3: to identifying the owner of the ring. Johnny's story was

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Speaker 3: not told because of any other reason other than it

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Speaker 3: made the most sense in that arc of storytelling between

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Speaker 3: those two episodes. But I will say that I always knew,

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Speaker 3: even when I was alone and I was pitching to

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Speaker 3: the network like what it was going to look like

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Speaker 3: before we had the green light, I knew that Jeffrey

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Speaker 3: Rignoll was going to be the last story. Always there's

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Speaker 3: going to be the last story.

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Speaker 2: We'll talk about Johnny Sick.

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Speaker 1: Part of his story, and a part of so many

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Speaker 1: of the stories of these victims, is that they are

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Speaker 1: young gay men who are in the nineteen seventies not

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Speaker 1: openly gay. Johnny has to kind of hide it by

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Speaker 1: having a very close girl friend who are kind of

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Speaker 1: led to believe that she is his girlfriend, even though

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Speaker 1: she is herself not straight.

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Speaker 3: Correct.

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Speaker 1: But you're telling a lot of stories about the LGBTQ community.

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Speaker 1: How do you do you consult with people in trying

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Speaker 1: to tell those stories in a way that is sensitive

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Speaker 1: to the fact that in the nineteen seventies was a

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Speaker 1: very different climate for people in that community, but also

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Speaker 1: understanding you're playing this to a twenty twenty five audience.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So the first answer is, yes, absolutely, we again

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Speaker 3: when I was all alone and I knew what we

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Speaker 3: were because I look, I'll fully confess that when I

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Speaker 3: came into the story, I only knew all of like

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Speaker 3: the surface little trivias about John Wayne Gacy. I knew

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Speaker 3: that he was the clown killer. I knew that he

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Speaker 3: was a contractor. I knew that he like was posed

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Speaker 3: with Roslin Carter, and like, I knew like all of

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Speaker 3: these surface level level things and I and I knew

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Speaker 3: that he obviously that he abducted and tortured and raped

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Speaker 3: and murdered these young these young boys and young men,

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Speaker 3: but I didn't fully understand the degree to which homophobia

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Speaker 3: played a part in him getting away with it. So

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Speaker 3: once I had stumbled on that piece of information as

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Speaker 3: I was running the pilot, I knew that I had

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Speaker 3: to reach out, and I reached out to Glad immediately,

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Speaker 3: because what I was most afraid of was that I

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Speaker 3: was somehow going to equate psychopathy with with queerness, and

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Speaker 3: that was something that I could not let happen because look,

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Speaker 3: at the end of the day, I only know what

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Speaker 3: I You know, I am a white, middle aged, you know,

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Speaker 3: heterosexual man, and I will say that I while I

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Speaker 3: believe the old adage that a writer can write anything,

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Speaker 3: I don't necessarily believe that a writer knows everything, nor

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Speaker 3: should they write everything. And so they were very generous

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Speaker 3: to us, not only with me. Then they came into

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Speaker 3: the writer's room and they helped us from the outline

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Speaker 3: stage through the script stage. And one of the rules

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Speaker 3: that we came to together that they were encouraging was

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Speaker 3: don't approach this through a twenty twenty five lens. You

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Speaker 3: have to approach it through the nineteen seventies. But the

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Speaker 3: one thing that is so ignorant of me, and I

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Speaker 3: will readily admit that. So the writers in the room,

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Speaker 3: these are writers. I've worked with some of them for

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Speaker 3: over almost fifteen years, ten years, eight years. The staff

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Speaker 3: writer was a new writer to me, but by happenstance,

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Speaker 3: they were queer, the majority queer. Not everybody, but the

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Speaker 3: majority queer. And so the room became this story ground

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Speaker 3: of our writers who were finding their identities in very

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Speaker 3: modern times and were struggling with the exact same the

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Speaker 3: exact same challenges. You know, what became apparent to me.

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Speaker 3: And when I'm asked what do you want people to

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Speaker 3: take away from this series, is that this is as

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Speaker 3: relevant today as it was in the nineteen seventies, And

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Speaker 3: I would go on the record as saying that I

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Speaker 3: actually believe that it is more relevant today. I believe

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Speaker 3: that the level of hatred and prejudice and bias that

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Speaker 3: we were seeing today that is leading to record number

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Speaker 3: of violence across the spectrum, but especially to underrepresented voices

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Speaker 3: the LGBTQ community, especially that the idea in any viewer's

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Speaker 3: mind that those problems have been solved. All you have

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Speaker 3: to do is sort of look at the world around

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Speaker 3: us and know that they haven't. So it became a

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Speaker 3: very powerful journey in the writer's room to listen to

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Speaker 3: these people that I've known for years expressed the same

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Speaker 3: challenges and prejudices and biases that we were exploring in

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Speaker 3: the stories in the nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 1: You do tell the majority of these stories from the

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Speaker 1: victim's perspectives, but something you touched on there about how

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Speaker 1: much homophobia played a role in how much John Wayne

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Speaker 1: Gacy got away with. You also tell the story of

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Speaker 1: law enforcement amongst this too, and not just the team

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Speaker 1: who are investigating Gaycy himself after he kills his final victim,

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Speaker 1: but for those officers who've investigated him in the past,

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Speaker 1: and just how difficult the families of those victims found

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Speaker 1: it when they came up against police officers who just

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Speaker 1: told them their sons were runaways or that, you know,

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Speaker 1: it didn't matter because they were sex workers, or that

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Speaker 1: they were gay and they lived certain lifestyles and so

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Speaker 1: if they disappeared, I guess they didn't matter as much

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Speaker 1: as the next person. Do you feel like you'll get

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Speaker 1: blowback from law enforcement for kind of exposing that storyline

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Speaker 1: amongst this as well?

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Speaker 3: I think that if we do, then it is a

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Speaker 3: very narrow interpretation of what we were doing in the show.

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Speaker 3: And I'll expand on that in a second. And if

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Speaker 3: it is that narrow interpretation of what we're doing in

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Speaker 3: the show, I would ask that the Royal they to

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Speaker 3: go back and rewatch because I don't believe, I know

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Speaker 3: that what we were presenting is a reality of the

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Speaker 3: time and a reality of the system, and the idea

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Speaker 3: that it can be denied then as much as it

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Speaker 3: could be denied today is just fantasy. Right. It is

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Speaker 3: a complete and utter reinterpretation of what actually happened. So

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Speaker 3: putting that into a box, right, and let's pretend that

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Speaker 3: I have to defend that interpretation, and right, I will

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Speaker 3: then pivot and I will bring up what you just

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Speaker 3: brought up at the top of your question, which is, yes,

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Speaker 3: we are pointing out the systemic failure of certain segments

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Speaker 3: of the police force, not only about blatant prejudices, but

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Speaker 3: also communicate failures, right, which are obvious because the system

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Speaker 3: changed quite a bit after the gaycy case. But on

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Speaker 3: the flip side, we're also showing officers who were in

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Speaker 3: that pit for months on end, who were digging with

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Speaker 3: their bare hands, who could not voice at the time

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Speaker 3: the concept of PTSD, but who absolutely came out of

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Speaker 3: that experience with PTSD police officers who quit the force,

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Speaker 3: who lost marriages, who turned to alcohol and drugs because

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Speaker 3: of the things that they sought on there. But they

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Speaker 3: were down there every single day trying to find and

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Speaker 3: identify every last person that was buried underneath Gaycy's house.

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Speaker 3: So the concept that we're somehow demonizing police is absolutely

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Speaker 3: too narrow of an interpretation of the reality, because we

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Speaker 3: are showing heroes on the one end and a complete

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Speaker 3: systemic failure on the other. And I stand by that,

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Speaker 3: and I will say that I hope that people who

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Speaker 3: interpret it any other way will go back and just

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Speaker 3: look a little bit, a little bit more closely of

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Speaker 3: what we're trying to say in the show.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy,

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Speaker 1: I'm speaking with Patrick McManus, director of Devil in Disguise

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Speaker 1: John Wayne Gacy. Up next, Patrick tells us what you

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Speaker 1: have to do to get into the mindset of a

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Speaker 1: serial killer in order to play the role. So he said,

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Speaker 1: before you knew some surface level stuff about Gaysey going

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Speaker 1: into this, were you as shocked as I was, because

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Speaker 1: I think I was the same as you. I knew

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Speaker 1: some stuff about him, but I didn't know the depths

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Speaker 1: of things when you did see how many times Gaysey

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Speaker 1: had been in contact with police. I mean, he went

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Speaker 1: to jail for eighteen months over the molestation of a

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Speaker 1: young boy and then was released. It's supposed to serve

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Speaker 1: a ten year sentence, released after eighteen months, and then

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Speaker 1: goes on to have other very very suspicious things, you know,

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Speaker 1: allegations leveled against him by all the young men. And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of it's a he said, he said situation,

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Speaker 1: And it's kind of like, go like, were you shocked

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Speaker 1: by how many times Gasey could have been stopped and wasn't.

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Speaker 3: Unbelievably so, I mean, I don't want to, you know,

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Speaker 3: give too simple or too quick of an answer, but

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Speaker 3: it's overwhelming. I mean, the it gets me every time,

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Speaker 3: the simple bit of disturbing, morbid, horrible trivia that is

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Speaker 3: a that is true. And I remember the moment in

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Speaker 3: the writer's room when we when we found it out

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Speaker 3: in the research that had Gasey simply done his time

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Speaker 3: for the first sodomy charge in nineteen where he went

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Speaker 3: to jail nineteen sixty eight. He would have gotten out

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Speaker 3: on the exact same day, day and year that Rob

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Speaker 3: Peaste was abducted and murdered, which we talk about in

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Speaker 3: the show. The concept that had he just done his time,

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Speaker 3: none of those boys would have died at his hands

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Speaker 3: is insane. And then and then you go into all

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Speaker 3: of the moments when the police knocked on his door,

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Speaker 3: all the moments when the police chased him, all the

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Speaker 3: moments when or followed him. Excuse me, all the moments

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Speaker 3: when family members went to the police. The kicker being

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Speaker 3: the one that I talked about earlier, which is the

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Speaker 3: Jeffrey Rignal case, which is where he was abducted, chloroformed, raped, torture,

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Speaker 3: dumped back on the street. Police did nothing. He did everything,

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Speaker 3: found his house, staked him out, found his house, brought

434
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:48,719
Speaker 3: it to the police, and they still did nothing, and

435
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 3: Gacy went on to kill four more young men, including

436
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 3: Rob Peacete. After that, consfidable like it's impossible to wrap

437
00:23:58,040 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 3: your brain around that.

438
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:01,439
Speaker 2: I want to ask you if that's true too.

439
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: When Rignold took a piece of Casey's mail to police

440
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: and said that's the guy, that's his address, that the

441
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: officer said, do you know that stealing mail is a crime?

442
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:12,920
Speaker 1: Criminal offense? Did that actually happen or was that dramatization?

443
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 3: That was dramatizing. But however, the fact that they got

444
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 3: his license plate, his home address and brought it and

445
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 3: the police said to him that there's nothing we can do,

446
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 3: it's out of our jurisdiction. That's true.

447
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 1: What victim after telling so many of these stories now,

448
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying that any are going to stand

449
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:36,880
Speaker 1: out in more than others, because each of their stories

450
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: by themselves are so terrible and sad, But was there

451
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:44,920
Speaker 1: any one of the victim's stories that really hit you hard?

452
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 2: I mean, they all would have.

453
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know what I'm asking exactly, But

454
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: is there one that stands out for you that you

455
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: can't stop thinking about?

456
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 3: So I want to say no, but I'm going to

457
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 3: answer the question in a different way. All of this

458
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 3: stories were were sort of overwhelming in various in various ways.

459
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 3: The story that gets me the most, and it's not

460
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 3: an individual story, it's just sort of a blanket of

461
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 3: what happened at the time, was that when the when

462
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 3: they first started breaking the case and they and they

463
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 3: and the police we were setting out up hotlines, and

464
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,159
Speaker 3: you know, they were asking the public all over not

465
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 3: just the not just the city or the state or

466
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 3: the country, but the world if you were missing anyone

467
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 3: in the Chicago area. And then and the number of

468
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:34,479
Speaker 3: calls were it was like a tsunami of calls, like

469
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 3: they were getting pings from all over the place. And

470
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 3: the second that the press made it out to be

471
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 3: that Gacy was queer and the victims were queer, it

472
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 3: dried up. And that always just stuck with me. I

473
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 3: don't I mean, look, it's I hate to I don't

474
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,199
Speaker 3: want to be ignorant about it, because I'm not, but

475
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 3: it's it's just so abhorrent to me that relatives of

476
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:08,159
Speaker 3: victims would not want the memory of their son or

477
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 3: brother or friend to be tainted by homosexuality. That's really

478
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 3: hard to that's really hard to fathom for me.

479
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 2: So that's the thing too, isn't it.

480
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: Because whilst we know of thirty three of Gaysey's victims,

481
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: many of whom were buried under his house, some in

482
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: his yard, some dumped in a river, that there are

483
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 1: still at least five unidentified at this point in time,

484
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: and they are still identifying the victims even now. I

485
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: think the most recent was twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two.

486
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: DNA obviously is playing a role now and they have

487
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: exhumed bodies and done for the DNA testing, but there

488
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: are still victims now that remain unidentified.

489
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:51,640
Speaker 2: How does that sit with you?

490
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 3: I mean, I will share because he's not here. Michael Chernis,

491
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 3: who plays Gaycy, he and I have done a lot

492
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 3: of pre us separate and together, and he says like

493
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 3: the thing that he wants people to take out of

494
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 3: the show, like if you could accomplish anything with the show,

495
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 3: that it's that people would would come forward and somehow

496
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 3: because of our show and the other reporting, not just

497
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:19,640
Speaker 3: our show, but like there are a lot of people

498
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 3: who have really tried to get this story out there

499
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 3: for this exact same reason that we might be able

500
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 3: to identify one more young young man. And so I

501
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 3: see it as sort of like a call to action,

502
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 3: and that I feel like the more successful our show is,

503
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 3: the more successful the documentaries are, the more successful the

504
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 3: books are, the more of an opportunity we have to

505
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 3: bring one one more boy home. And that to me

506
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 3: is sort of empowering in many ways. It's you know,

507
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 3: we do these social action campaigns alongside our shows, all

508
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 3: of our shows, and our current social action campaign for

509
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 3: Devil in Disguise is called Guarding Youth, and it's and

510
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 3: it is about trying to give people not just the education,

511
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 3: but the tools in order to try to better protect

512
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 3: youth through at risk at home, at school and communities.

513
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 3: And so I feel like this is another opportunity for

514
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 3: people to do something and to begin, you know, to

515
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 3: begin to look into your family's past and and see

516
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 3: if there is some story that you have heard about

517
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 3: or know about, or that might have some connective tissue

518
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 3: to these to these young boys. I would love nothing

519
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 3: more than to bring another one home, to be party

520
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 3: to it, not to do it on our own, but

521
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 3: to be party to it.

522
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: You mentioned Michael Chennis there, who does play Gacy in

523
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: your series. How do you work with someone to recreate

524
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: someone who is so essentially evil? And I mean you

525
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: do take us through the process of him speaking to

526
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: you know, the therapist and being psychoanalyzed and getting a

527
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: better understanding as to what kind of mental state this

528
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 1: man was to have done the things that he's done,

529
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: not saying that anyone who suffers from any of those

530
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: things will go on to do what he did. But

531
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: in order to play someone like that, and I don't know.

532
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: He said in other interviews that he watched some of

533
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: those interviews and listened to the tapesticket an understanding of

534
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: how he moved and what he sounded like, but to

535
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: exist in that character for a while. And you and

536
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: I spoke just before we hit go on this interview

537
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: that I've been sitting in the law of gacy for

538
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: the past few days in preparation for this interview. You've

539
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: sat in this law for years now? Have you made

540
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: this and now you're talking about it again? For him,

541
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: he had to embody this evilness. How do you work

542
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: with someone to make sure that they can safely navigate.

543
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 3: That well, Michael, first of all, was partner from the beginning.

544
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 3: I mean, I told the show and I went out

545
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 3: looking for looking for the person to play easy and

546
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 3: it became very apparent, very quickly that if Michael Churnis

547
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: was going to say yes, that he was the one.

548
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 3: And then he became a partner, I mean from we

549
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 3: were in the writer's room still for months, and one

550
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 3: of the challenges, first of all, for I think both

551
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 3: the writers and for Michael was how is this person real?

552
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 3: You know, when I wrote the first episode, even I

553
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 3: was struggling with how this guy the way he talks,

554
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 3: how he talked, Like what he's saying is so not

555
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 3: what you expect out of a quote unquote serial killer,

556
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 3: that it seems fake, and that if you, like had

557
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 3: written it on your own and it was a pure

558
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 3: piece of fiction, people would would call, you know, call

559
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 3: bullshit on you. Then the writers came in, and the

560
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 3: writers called bullshit on me. They were like they read

561
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 3: the script and these are writers again and I've known forever,

562
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 3: and they were like Patrick, this come on, man, like,

563
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 3: give me a break, Like what are we supposed to

564
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 3: do with this? And I said, just do me a

565
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:45,239
Speaker 3: favor and go off and do some research and then

566
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 3: come back to me. And they did that, and they

567
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 3: came back and they were like, oh shit, okay, how

568
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 3: do we write this fucking guy right? Like he's a

569
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 3: whole other thing? And then then we're in it with Turnis,

570
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 3: and Turnis was like bristling at it right, not not

571
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 3: in a bad way, but in like the same way

572
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 3: we had it right where we're like, how do we deal, right,

573
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 3: And I said to him, and he talks about this

574
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 3: like that, Michael, if you don't approach it from this perspective,

575
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 3: which is the real perspective, which is this guy was affable, charming,

576
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 3: He was the guy and the charming in quotes, because

577
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 3: he was a goofball really right, then it's sort of

578
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 3: a disservice to the victims because you're because then you're like,

579
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 3: you know, if you're not doing it that, You're like,

580
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 3: why do you get in the car? Why do you

581
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 3: want a job? Why are you going home with this guy? Right?

582
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 3: So that was like challenge number one was just getting

583
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 3: everyone on the same page of who Gaycy really was.

584
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 3: And then as it relates to just sort of the

585
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 3: psychology of taking I don't know if that if the

586
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 3: if the question you're getting at is like, how do

587
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 3: you take care of an actor who has to deal

588
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 3: with this? You know, I will say speaking for Turnis

589
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 3: because I've heard him say this quite a bit. You know,

590
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 3: Number one, he's he talks quite a bit about how

591
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:54,959
Speaker 3: as an actor and he's Julliard trained. He's like, right,

592
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 3: he's like a really well trained actor. He's like, you're

593
00:31:57,560 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 3: supposed to figure out all the ways in which you

594
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 3: could do which you connect and excuse someone, right, like,

595
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 3: you're you're this person, and he said, doing this role,

596
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 3: he had to throw all that training out because he's like,

597
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 3: I will never be able to accept this person. I

598
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 3: can't do it. He's like, I can do it to

599
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 3: a point. And then I get to the next point,

600
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 3: which is him murdering and raping and torture, and I'm like,

601
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 3: I can't find a way to excuse that. And we

602
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 3: talk about we can talk about that next. We talk

603
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 3: about that quite a bit, that you can't excuse it.

604
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 3: And you said right there that someone with mental health

605
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 3: issues are not going to go on to do this thing.

606
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 3: There's no way of explaining this guy away other than

607
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 3: the fact that he is pure, unadulterated, singular evil. Right.

608
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,959
Speaker 3: There's no struggle with identity, there's no struggle with dads

609
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 3: and alcoholic dads, there's no struggle with mental health. Right.

610
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 3: That excuses this away. So turnus in terms of taking

611
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,479
Speaker 3: care of himself. I know that he talks about how

612
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 3: and I saw it because I was in his trailer

613
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 3: quite a bit. He had a list of all of

614
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 3: the names of the victims on a board, on like

615
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 3: a fold out tryboard, And while he never did it

616
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 3: in front of me, he talks quite a bit about

617
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 3: how he would get done with his day and he

618
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 3: would go and he would just read the names. And

619
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 3: his point was, we're doing it for them, like, this

620
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 3: is not about Gayzy, this is about them, and so

621
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 3: that's why I'm doing it. And I thought that was

622
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 3: a very interesting way of protecting himself.

623
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 2: I think that's interesting.

624
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: What you say about Gaysey is that he is a

625
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: very difficult character to wrap your head around in that

626
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: he seems quite charming in a very fun, dad jokey

627
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: kind of way, and his ability to lure people into that,

628
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: and he talked himself up quite a bit, and you know,

629
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: heyes an important person, and people believed that, and they

630
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: believed that he would give them a job and pay

631
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: them lots of money, and so there was lots of

632
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: ways that he lured people in.

633
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 2: But do you feel like it from your surface level.

634
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: Understanding of who he was at the beginning all of this,

635
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: do you feel like you at all could get a

636
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: handle or an understanding of the person John Wayne Gacy

637
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: who he actually is, Because I don't think anyone truly

638
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,719
Speaker 1: understands them motivations for the things that he did. But

639
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 1: do you get it was there a moment that you thought,

640
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: this is who this guy really is?

641
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:10,399
Speaker 3: I know this is a podcast. I shouldn't take such

642
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 3: a long breath or thought, I'm it's such a you know,

643
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 3: it's so it's amazing. I've been doing press for this

644
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 3: for like a more than a month, and I've been

645
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 3: talking about it for three years, and I'm no one's

646
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 3: ever asked me this question. I I guess I'm going

647
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 3: to have to go back to a version of what

648
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 3: I just said, which is, I don't think there was

649
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:38,280
Speaker 3: any world in which myself and the writers and Turness

650
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 3: could have read more, studied, more dissected more. I don't

651
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 3: know how we could have done more. And I don't

652
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 3: think that I can say yes that I I know

653
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:58,240
Speaker 3: who John Wayne Gacy is because I and I'm stealing

654
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 3: a little bit from Turnis on this. But I think

655
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 3: that I know a lot of people who struggled with

656
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 3: their identity, and I think that I know a lot

657
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 3: of people who struggled with abusive parents and I and

658
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 3: struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction. Is Gaysey did and

659
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 3: and I think that I've known people I know, I

660
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 3: know very personally, people who have struggled with their mental

661
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 3: health in my family. And this is where I'm stealing

662
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 3: from Turnus. I think you can you can understand Gacy

663
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 3: only to that far, and you can't make the next step.

664
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 3: And so I have to attribute that answer to Michael

665
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 3: because I think it's like the most universal way of

666
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 3: looking at it, which is that you can understand him

667
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 3: only to a point, but you will never fully understand.

668
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 3: And then and I think that you then go to

669
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:51,760
Speaker 3: the most base answer, which is and the most simpleton answer,

670
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,320
Speaker 3: which is that he was just evil like And how

671
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 3: do you explain evil? Right next?

672
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 1: What parts of this story did Patrick decide to leave

673
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: out of the series and why When you're deciding what

674
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 1: parts of Gaysey's life to include in this story and

675
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,720
Speaker 1: what not, how do you then decide what to discard?

676
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: Because I understand you shot a fair amount more footage,

677
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: say in the final episode, which takes us to Gaysey's execution,

678
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 1: which we will never see because you cut all of it,

679
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 1: how do you decide to say, you know what, this

680
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: is a really important part of Gaysey's story, the fact

681
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: that he did receive the death penalty, and he was

682
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: eventually executed, but yet you see him very briefly in

683
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: this final episode where it should all be about him.

684
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: It is his death finally, but you choose to make

685
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: it not about him, Like how do you come to

686
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: that point?

687
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 3: So, first of all, there is a part of me

688
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:55,279
Speaker 3: not for a while, I want there to be some

689
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 3: space because I want I'll get to the answer and

690
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 3: this will go to why I want to want space.

691
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 3: But there is a very large part of me that

692
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 3: someday wants to release want. I want to release the

693
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,760
Speaker 3: original cut of it, because I will say that Michael

694
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,879
Speaker 3: did an extraordinary performance and he was in half of it.

695
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel really bad for the studio and

696
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 3: the network and especially my line producer, because we spent

697
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 3: a lot of money that did not end up on

698
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 3: screen a lot, and Michael's performance is spectacular. So I

699
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 3: directed for the first time, and I directed the finale,

700
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 3: and I was in post on it, and I remember

701
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 3: it really, really clearly. It was a Sunday morning. I

702
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,280
Speaker 3: woke up early. My wife and I on Saturday Sunday's

703
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,320
Speaker 3: trade off, bringing each other coffee in bed and eoli.

704
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 3: My wife who runs our social action in our philanthropy

705
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 3: for the company, came upstairs with my coffee and she

706
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 3: looked at my face and she's like, what's wrong. And

707
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 3: I was like, I think, I think I have to

708
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 3: cut Surnas out of the finale. And I woke up

709
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 3: super early with just this like flash that it was

710
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 3: the last chance I had to like make the statement

711
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 3: that it was not about gaycy because I feel like,

712
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 3: and I can say, like the scenes were really powerful

713
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 3: with journies that I don't think that there was any

714
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,320
Speaker 3: world in which an audience wasn't going to come away

715
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:28,280
Speaker 3: with some semblance of weirdly feeling for him, like weirdly

716
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 3: like it was. It wouldn't you're not going to be

717
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 3: on his side. You're gonna want him to die. But

718
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 3: there was enough in there that there would be something.

719
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 3: And even if you didn't, right like, even if I

720
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 3: was guaranteed to have you have nothing but antipathy for him,

721
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 3: there was a world in which, you know, we were

722
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 3: still going to be focusing on him for thirty five

723
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,400
Speaker 3: minutes of the finale. And so I asked my editor,

724
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 3: Ryan Denmark, who I've we've worked together for years. I

725
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 3: was like can you tomorrow cut me and cut without

726
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 3: Journis in it? And he's like what, And I said,

727
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 3: just do it and let's see how I went. And

728
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 3: so he did it the next day and at noon

729
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 3: lunch we watched it down together on zoom and we

730
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 3: got to the end and I just said, what do

731
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 3: you think and he goes, Yep, this is what it is.

732
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 3: And by the way, Denmark, I mean this with nothing

733
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 3: but love, because I'll never work without him. Is a

734
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 3: big asshole, like he would tell me he would one

735
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 3: hundred percent tell me if I was wrong. He not,

736
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 3: like That's why I love him is that he'll tell

737
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 3: me that I suck all the time. And then the

738
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,359
Speaker 3: question was how do I tell Urnis? And it took

739
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 3: me a long time to tell Turnis uncomfortably long time

740
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: because I wanted to fly to New York and watch

741
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 3: it down with him and I couldn't make it happen.

742
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 3: And then I had to eventually break down and tell him.

743
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 3: And I got to tell you, I know he will

744
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 3: say that he he took it hard at first, like

745
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 3: he says, he's like the ego, the actor ego, right,

746
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 3: but he was very professional about it. He went off

747
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 3: and he watched it and he came back and he

748
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 3: said he got it too, And I will say, I

749
00:39:57,640 --> 00:39:59,919
Speaker 3: think it's really good because he's not in it.

750
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 1: I'd love to know if you've gotten any feedback on

751
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: dramatizing true crime.

752
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 2: Because we did speak to the author of the book.

753
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: On Ed Green after Rian Murphy made Monsters about Ed Green,

754
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: and he was concerned that people had the wrong impression

755
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: as to who ed Gen actually was due to the

756
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,399
Speaker 1: dramatization of his life in that story. Have you had

757
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: feedback about people concern that dramatizing any of this story

758
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: was the wrong thing to do, yes, or maybe you've

759
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: had the opposite.

760
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 3: Both honestly both. I mean, as I expressed a little

761
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 3: while ago, like I know that I'm going to disappoint people.

762
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:47,279
Speaker 3: And there's absolutely not a question that we've received people said, well,

763
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 3: that is not right, that is not accurate. I can

764
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 3: tell you that it's not at the same level as

765
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 3: what some of the pushback has been another series. Overwhelmingly

766
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 3: it's been positive. And again, like, look, there are scenes,

767
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 3: whole scenes in the show that in which we lifted

768
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 3: dialogue from depositions or from interviews, and we like made

769
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 3: that the dialogue.

770
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: Well you can also see that too when sometimes you

771
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: run a storyline and then you've played the actual footage

772
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 1: of the exact thing that was said in that episode.

773
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean yes, but I mean absolutely the preponderance

774
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 3: of the dialogue is fictional, right, Like we're operating under

775
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 3: an inspired by dramatization, and there's no way we could

776
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 3: have been in these conversations, right. So but I will

777
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 3: say again, like wherever we faltered, and I want to

778
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 3: put that in quotes, I will say that it was

779
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 3: absolutely inspired by a desire to get the spirit of

780
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 3: all of the research right. And the places where we

781
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 3: overstepped quote unquote bounds of what was real and dramatized,

782
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 3: it still all came from a place of us studying

783
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 3: this character and this character, and maybe these two characters

784
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 3: were never in the same room together, right, but they

785
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 3: were sharing an experience that was real, and that was

786
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 3: what we were trying to get at. So I am

787
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 3: in no way, shape or form casting any aspersions on

788
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 3: other shows you mentioned, ed Geen, I stand by what

789
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 3: I've said a million times and I will say for

790
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 3: the rest of my career, which is that art is

791
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 3: subjective and is there for a reason, and it is

792
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:34,280
Speaker 3: going to be judged both positively or critiqued, both positively

793
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 3: and negatively, and that's just art, right. I can tell

794
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 3: you that every moment of every day in the writer's

795
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:47,240
Speaker 3: room and then on in prep and then in production

796
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 3: was in a desire to get it as right as

797
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 3: we could possibly get it, even if what we're saying

798
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,280
Speaker 3: is that it's a spiritual rightness. And I know that

799
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 3: that phrase is probably loaded and and probably is going

800
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 3: to upset people who don't think that we should do

801
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 3: this in any way. But I can tell you that

802
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 3: I feel very proud that we did something that was

803
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 3: super respectful, as respectful as we could possibly do one

804
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 3: of these things. And I'll always try to get it

805
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:17,720
Speaker 3: better the next time, like I'll always continue to try

806
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:21,279
Speaker 3: to evolve this process as long as I am doing it,

807
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,400
Speaker 3: so that at the end of the day, I hope

808
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 3: that people can look at what we've done in Doctor

809
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 3: Death and Girl from Plainville in this show and say

810
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 3: we tried to not be sealacious, we tried to not

811
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:37,439
Speaker 3: be gratuitous, we tried to not glorify. We really did

812
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 3: try to honor the memory of these stories as best

813
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 3: as we possibly could. Well.

814
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: The fact that you did not show the deaths of

815
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: a single one of them, or the lead up to.

816
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 2: Their deaths, that felt very respectful.

817
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: No violence was shown throughout this entire series, and you

818
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:54,879
Speaker 1: to think a story about a serial killer that would

819
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:55,760
Speaker 1: be the main focus.

820
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 2: That must have been a very deliberate choice.

821
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. From that was the one red line that

822
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:06,240
Speaker 3: we that we refused to cross, and that was both

823
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 3: out of respect but also strategic. I mean, I will

824
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 3: say that I learned a real valuable lesson in Doctor

825
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 3: Death when we didn't show any surgeries until the finale.

826
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 3: And I was blown away by the number of people

827
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 3: who have come up to me over the years and

828
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 3: said those surgeries were so grotesque. And I was like,

829
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 3: you never saw anything, and I said, of course we did,

830
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 3: and I said, go back. You never saw anything, not

831
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 3: intil the finale. You see it in the finale. But

832
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 3: it was all imagination, sound design, imagination. And when we

833
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 3: made the decision out of respect to not show the murders,

834
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 3: we also knew strategically that people were going to still

835
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 3: find it extraordinarily like they were going to have a

836
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 3: visceral experience because you didn't need to see it to

837
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 3: feel it, and you didn't need to see it to

838
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 3: imagine it. And and the more that you've got to

839
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,719
Speaker 3: know the people around the moment of their death, the

840
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 3: more visceral of an experience it was going to end

841
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 3: up being. And that is not me trying to take

842
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 3: advantage of those feelings. That is me just simply saying

843
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 3: that is the human reaction, is that your imagination is

844
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 3: extraordinarily powerful and you don't need to show it. I

845
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 3: also will say that I know that we disappointed people

846
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 3: who wanted to see it, Like I'm readily aware of

847
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 3: the fact that there are people who probably find our

848
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:32,359
Speaker 3: show boring out there, and that's again the subjectivity of art,

849
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 3: right Like for some people it works, for other people,

850
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:37,879
Speaker 3: it doesn't work. And I stand by what we did

851
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 3: because I think that it was I think it was

852
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 3: ultimately the right way to do it.

853
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: John White Gacy was put to death on May tenth,

854
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. Rob Peat's body was finally found in

855
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: the Deplains River in April nineteen seventy nine, four months

856
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 1: after he went missing. Victims number twenty eight, twenty six, thirteen,

857
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: twenty one, and ten still unidentified Thank you to Patrick

858
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: for helping us tell this story. You can watch Devil

859
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: in Disguise John Wayne Gacy now streaming on Binge. The

860
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: link is in our show notes. If you want to

861
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: see images from this story, head to our Instagram page

862
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: at True Crime Conversations. Give us a follow and have

863
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 1: a look at our case explainers there too. If you

864
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode, please review our show on Apple Podcasts.

865
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 2: I'll eave a comment on Spotify.

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Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations is hosted by me Claire Murphy and

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Speaker 1: produced by Tarlie Blackman, with audio designed by Jacob Brown.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I'll be back next week with

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Speaker 1: another True Crime Conversation. We want to hear from our

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Speaker 1: true crime fans. Tell us what kind of content you love,

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Speaker 1: what you'd like to hear more of, and a bit

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Speaker 1: about your listening habits. You'll final link to the show

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Speaker 1: notes to take our quick five minute survey, and you

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Speaker 1: have the chance to win a one thousand dollar gift

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Speaker 1: card just for participating. True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional

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Speaker 1: owners of land and water that this podcast was recorded

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Speaker 1: on