The Ten Creepiest Paintings by Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy

10. “Hi Ho With Clown”

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​Well, there goes our fond childhood memories of a Disney classic. Even the dwarfs look like they’re thinking: “Uh… isn’t this a copyright violation or something?”

9. “Pogo in the Making”

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​Gacy used to dress up like a clown named “Pogo” and show up at kid’s birthday parties. Fun fact: While most clowns customarily round the tips of their painted smile to look less maniacal, Gacy kept his nice and pointy.

8. “Dwarf’s Baseball”

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​Nothing creepy about this little portrait of a Chicago Cubs batter playing baseball against the seven dwarfs, right? WRONG. Those signatures one the bottom include such Hall of Famers as Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Joe Dimaggio — the work of dealer Stephen Koschal, who showed up at autograph conventions and of course never told the baseball greats what they were signing. Perverting our all-American heroes is, indeed, creepy.

7. “Handprint and Clowns”

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Just try to look at that handprint without shuddering a little bit.​

6. “Lou Jacobs”

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We needed a break from the overt creepiness. Look—if you didn’t know this one was a Gacy, you’d think it was just a nice painting of a nice clown named Lou Jacobs.

5. “Sex Skull”

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Okay, back to the overt creepiness.

4. “Self-Portrait”

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​The creep himself. By the way, why did the guards give this guy paints? ​Why not JUST GIVE HIM FREAKIN’ LAMBS BLOOD TO CREEP US OUT A LITTLE BIT MORE?

3. “Pogo the Clown”

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​Ah… so creepy classic.

2. “Patches”

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​Barf pallete remix!

1. “Pogo and Clown Skull”

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​Okay, time for a long, cold shower. Goodbye.

John Wayne Gacy, The Killer Clown

The first known account of John Gacy’s sadistic behavior began after his marriage to Marilynn Myers in 1964 in Iowa. He was working in management at his father-in-law’s restaurant and somehow lured a young boy to the back and tried to sodomize him when he refused to perform oral sex. The boy reported Gacy to the police and he ended up doing 18 months of a 10 year prison sentence on a sexual molestation conviction.

Divorced and Disgraced:

After prison, divorced and disgraced, he decided to return to his hometown Chicago and start a new life. He remarried but the marriage ended quickly, leaving Gacy alone to feed his sadistic fantasies. By 1978 he was actively cruising for homesexual young men and luring them to his home where he would then torture, rape and brutally kill them.

Looking for Work:

Another tactic he used to get young men to his home was through posting jobs at his construction company. He would lure them to his house on the pretext of talking to them about a job. Once the boys got inside his home he would overpower them, knock them unconscious and begin his gruesome crime of torture, rape and murder.

Care for a Cup of Coffee?:

The police became suspicious of Gacy when a mother of one boy who was to meet Gacy about a job never returned home. When the police saw Gacy’s criminal record they began to keep a close eye on him. Gacy, in his usual bizarre behavior, invited the police in for coffee. The police accepted the invitation and once inside they became ovrwhelmed by a strong odor which they recognized as possibly coming from a decaying dead body.

Bodies Found Under the Crawlspace:

The police then obtained a search warrant and uncovered 29 bodies in the crawlspace of Gacy’s house. The bodies were all male and ranged in age from nine years old to their mid-20s. Later Gacy admitted to more killings in which he dumped the bodies into a nearby river. In searching for all possible victims, the police excavated Gacy’s yard and gutted the house, eventually tearing it completely down.

Executed in 1994 by Lethal Injection:

After he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980, he continued to taunt authorities with different versions of his story about the murders in an attempt to stay alive. Authorities were not swayed and on May 10, 1994 his execution by lethal injection was carried out.Well, besides that, Gacy was also a talented painter.

In the months following Gacy’s execution, many of his paintings were auctioned. A total of nineteen were sold by an autograph dealer named Steve Koschal. The asking prices of Gacy’s artwork ranged from $195, for an acrylic painting of a bird to $9500 for a painting depicting dwarves playing baseball against the Chicago Cubs. This particular painting was autographed by several members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, although those who had signed the painting were unaware Gacy was the creator. Koschal had initially suggested to Gacy that he offer his paintings for sale and subsequently became Gacy’s agent; even commissioning Gacy to produce specific paintings such as the one signed by the Baseball Hall of Famers.

Exhibitions of Gacy’s paintings have been held since the 1980s and continue to be held to this day. Gacy had been criticized for earning money from the sale of his paintings, although he dismissed the criticism, claiming his paintings were designed “to bring joy into people’s lives.”

Several of Gacy’s paintings were specifically bought with the intention that they be burned: a bonfire held in Naperville in June 1994 saw a total of 25 paintings burned. The communal bonfire was attended by approximately 300 people, including family members of nine of Gacy’s victims.

On May 13, 2011, an exhibit of 74 of Gacy’s works opened at the Arts Factory Gallery in Las Vegas, NV, including the self-portrait “Goodbye Pogo” priced at $4,500. Reportedly, the National Center for Victims of Crime, one of the named beneficiaries of the sale, obtained a cease and desist order on the use of their name in connection with the exhibit. 

(Source: crime.about.com)