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Karen Conti was a budding lawyer in the early 1990s when she was asked to defend John Wayne Gacy, but she wanted to “look bad in the eye,” so she took the case.
A fierce opponent of the death penalty, Conti became the only lawyer on his death row defense team, leading to hours of conversations with the “Killer Clown.”
“Gacy wasn’t scary,” Conti said during a March 10 segment on WGN Radio in Chicago, when asked if it was like a scene from “The Silence of the Lambs.” “Gacy wasn’t scary…he was a normal guy and seemed friendly, glib, smart and attractive, and obviously that’s why he got away with so many (murders).
“No one could rectify who he was. In his one life, his normal, business, charitable, political, church-going life. And then that horrible side of him that committed some of the most evil acts I could ever imagine.”
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Gacy was primarily a contractor during his killing spree, which included the rape, torture and murder of at least 33 young men and boys in the Chicago suburb of Norwood Park Township.
He was finally arrested in December 1978 and police found dozens of bodies buried in his home and throughout his property, but Conti believes there are probably dozens more.
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Gacy hunted at a time when police digital databases did not exist. “Why would he have stopped (killing) when he was out of town?” with you said the united states sun during an interview in March.
“Today is different, but connecting the dots of Gacy’s travels would take a lot of effort.”
Conti, who was 29 at the time and six years into his career, as well as his partner, were first called upon to defend Gacy in a First Amendment civil rights case.
She thought it was a “strange call,” considering his execution was only seven months away, but saw this as an opportunity “to face the death penalty.”
Conti was part of Gacy’s defense team from his final appeals from 1993 until his execution by lethal injection on May 4, 1994.
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One thing that stood out to Conti during his final conversations with Gacy was the serial killer’s humor, he said during an April 2 interview on “The diffuse microphone“He still made jokes while they executed him.
“At one point he said something like he wishes they had the electric chair, and the guards said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because then I would ask you to hold my hand,'” Conti said.
During the last months of his life, Gacy “just didn’t want to face (his impending death),” Conti said on the YouTube show.
“I would talk to him about it. I would say, ‘Are you okay? Do you need to get your affairs in order? Is there anything I can do?’ That’s what I do as a lawyer: I’m supposed to help that person legally.
“And he didn’t want to talk about it, and I think that probably saved him from a lot of mental agony.”
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Although Gacy was officially found guilty of 33 murders, Conti believes there are more victims and potentially politically connected figures who may have turned a blind eye.
“While there are hints and suspicions, definitive evidence is elusive. Gacy’s records show that he was out of town during certain disappearances, and there could be more co-conspirators involved,” Conti told the US Sun.
“How many more bodies could there be? I’d guess another 20.”
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While there is no definitive evidence that Gacy committed the crimes with anyone, Conti told the Sun: “I have no doubt that there were co-conspirators.”
He said that during Gacy’s trial, prosecutors did not want to “dirty” the case by including other suspects in the matter.
During her time as Gacy’s attorney, Conti and her partners on the defense team received death threats, faced bomb threats and came under intense scrutiny, including from judges, Conti said.
“My reputation took a nosedive,” Conti said on “The Fuzzy Mic.” “After Gacy was executed, things completely changed. I think there was a social relief at his death… and then it became a novelty to this day. When I’m introduced, ‘It’s Karen Conti. She represented to Gacy.'”
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Conti said he had a “kind relationship” with Gacy, whom he referred to as a sociopath and narcissist. “He doesn’t have any real feelings for anyone or anything, so even if he says the right thing, it’s because he knows he should say it.”
“But there was a sense of humanity to him, and he and I exchanged jokes, talked about family and different experiences,” Conti said, which he details in his new book “Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy.”
“I joined him to do my job,” said the renowned lawyer. “And since I was the only woman on the team, I was able to work with him because he was very difficult to deal with, he was confrontational and oppositional, especially with men.”
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But she got the impression that he wanted to be caught by the police and was “relieved” to be behind bars, otherwise he would kill again.
“He was frantic (when he was arrested),” Conti said. “Many serial killers start off killing once a year, then they increase and they need more violence, they need more victims,” Conti said. “So I think Gacy, in the end, was just wearing him down.
“And I think he knew that if he ever went out again, he would kill again.”
He said he was sexually abused, suffered head injuries as a child and had repressed homosexual tendencies.
With the murders, “I think he was almost trying to kill himself over and over again,” she said.
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