Tragic reason actor Jack Merrill kept quiet after he was ‘raped by John Wayne Gacy while trapped in sick torture collar’
AN actor says he was abducted and raped by notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy just months before he was arrested and eventually charged with murdering 33 men.
Jack Merrill, known for his roles in Law & Order and Grey’s Anatomy, described being forced into a sick homemade torture collar after accepting a ride from Gacy in 1978.
Gacy, a contractor who performed as a clown on the side, was executed by lethal injection in 1994 for the murders.
While only 33 victims were linked to Gacy, he told cops when he was arrested that the number might’ve been as high as 45. The number of men he attacked and raped is even higher.
Merrill, now 65, was 19 when he encountered Gacy in his hometown of Evanston, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. Gacy picked Merrill up in his car before drugging him and bringing the teen back to his Chicago home for a horrific night of rape and torture.
The actor kept quiet about the attack for decades until he told a Hollywood executive years ago, according to People.
He told the outlet that he only told his close friends about the traumatic event after realizing he didn’t want his legacy to be connected to the evil clown.
Merrill has now written a one-man show about the terrifying night, which he said started when he walking home from a swim at the local YMCA.
Gacy, later known for “cruising” around Chicago to look for potential victims, pulled over and asked Merrill if he wanted a ride.
Merrill agreed and said that after a brief conversation, Gacy told the young actor he was smarter than the other men he picked up.
Gacy then offered poppers, amyl nitrite used as a party drug, to the teen before shoving a rag full of the drug in his face.
When Merrill, woke up, he was handcuffed in the car and heading to Gacy’s home, where cops later found dozens of bodies crammed into the clown’s creepy crawl space.
“He told me to be quiet. A light from the back of the house hit him in the eyes and suddenly I realized how dangerous he was,” Merrill remained.
“I was a puny 19-year-old. I knew I couldn’t anger him. I just had to diffuse the situation and act like everything was okay.”
He said that his calm behavior was due in part to his upbringing, where he often dealt with explosive confrontations with his parents.
Merrill said Gacy’s dark house felt like a “trap.” Gacy temporarily freed the teen and offered him beer and drugs before putting the handcuffs back on him.
Who was 'Killer Clown' John Wayne Gacy?
John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer who raped, tortured, and killed at least 33 men throughout the 1970s.
Born in 1942, the murderer flew under the radar for years due to his public reputation in the Chicago area as a hard-working contractor who performed as a clown for hospitalized children in his free time.
Gacy’s appearances as a clown, called either Patches or Pogo depending on the performance, led to his nickname of the “Killer Clown.”
In 1968, Gacy was found guilty of the sodomy of a teenage boy in Waterloo, Iowa. His first wife divorced him, taking full custody of the couple’s two children as Gacy was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
However, Gacy only served 18 months in prison before he was released on parole.
He then moved back to his hometown of Chicago to live with his mother.
Gacy murdered his first victim, Timothy McCoy in 1972. After the divorce from his second wife in 1976, he murdered at least 30 more victims.
He killed all 33 of his known victims in his ranch-style house. 26 of his victims were buried in the crawlspace of his home, while three more were found buried on his property. He also confessed to dumping at least four bodies in a nearby river.
Gacy would typically abduct or lure his victims to his house before tricking them into putting on handcuffs as part of a magic trick. He then would rape and torture his victims before killing them by strangling or suffocating them.
Cops arrested Gacy on December 21, 1978, while investigating the disappearance of his teenage victim Robert Piest.
He was found guilty of 33 murders and sentenced to death in 1980.
Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.
TORTURE DEVICE
Gacy dragged him down the hallway, where the killer’s sick DIY torture device waited.
“He put this homemade contraption around my neck,” Merrill said.
“It had ropes and pulleys, and it went around my back and through my handcuffed hands in a way that if I struggled, I would choke.”
Merrill said that he began to suffocate at one point and that Gacy stuck a loaded gun in his mouth before raping him in the bedroom.
The teen never fought back – which might have been the reason for his survival.
“I knew if I fought him, I didn’t have much of a chance,” Merrill said, adding that he never panicked or yelled.
Merrill said after the torture lasted for hours, Gacy started to seem tired and then said he would take his victim home around 5 am.
Gacy gave the teen his phone number, which Merrill said he flushed down the toilet as soon as he got home.
“I didn’t call the police – I didn’t know he was a killer at the time,” he recalled.
SHOCKING REALIZATION
Weeks later, Merrill saw a news story about the bodies found in the crawlspace of Gacy’s home.
When he saw a map of where the home was, he recognized the location as the place where he was assaulted and immediately called the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I called the paper and said, ‘That guy raped me,'” Merill said.
However, he backed down because his dad, Jerome Holtzman, was a baseball writer for the paper.
“I hung up the phone. I thought if the police ever needed my help, I’d come forward,” he said.
Without Merrill’s testimony, Gacy was still found guilty of the murders years later and sentenced to death.
“I read that he went to prison. I’d see his picture, and he was repulsive,” the actor said.
“The lurking thought has been, ‘Did he stain me? Was I somehow stained?'”
‘SAVED MY LIFE’
Merrill needed a change after the horror he faced, so he moved to New York, where he began acting.
He said he later found forgiveness for Gacy as well as for his parents, who he credited for teaching him how to stay secure in tough situations.
“They saved my life that night. Those lessons – having that radar – have stayed with me my entire life,” he said.
Merrill, who now lives in Los Angeles with his husband, says that performing the show about his life, a play called The Save, is “cathartic.”
“I’m proud of my journey,” he said.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network) at 800-656-HOPE (4673).