John Wayne Gacy
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50 free John Wayne Gacy trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
John Wayne Gacy was a suburban Chicago contractor, a local political volunteer and a children's entertainer who was convicted in 1980 of murdering dozens of young men and boys. The distance between his public life and his crimes is why the case is still studied, and why it changed how police respond when a teenager goes missing. This quiz sticks to the documented record. It covers his childhood and early jobs, his first conviction in Iowa, the businesses and community roles he built near Chicago, the ten days of detective work in December 1978 that ended in his arrest, the trial, his years on death row and the long effort to name every victim. A final group of questions looks at the books, films and series made about the case. It is written for true-crime readers, students of criminal justice and anyone who has watched a documentary about the case and wants to check what they remember. The questions avoid graphic detail, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Under which clown name did John Wayne Gacy perform at Chicago parties, parades and children's hospitals?
Pogo
Pogo was a character Gacy invented in 1975 after joining a clown club, designing the makeup and costume himself; the volunteer act later earned him the nickname Killer Clown.
Q 02Which fast-food chain, whose Iowa restaurants John Wayne Gacy once managed, supplied the centerpiece of his last meal?
KFC
KFC supplied the bucket of chicken Gacy ordered with fried shrimp, french fries and strawberries; in the 1960s he had run three of its franchises for his first wife's family.
Q 03Which First Lady posed for a photograph with John Wayne Gacy while he was directing an annual Chicago parade?
Rosalynn Carter
Rosalynn Carter met Gacy through his work on the parade, and he wore a lapel pin marking special clearance in the picture, which became an embarrassment once his crimes emerged.
Q 04In which part of John Wayne Gacy's suburban Chicago house did police find most of his victims' remains in 1978?
The crawl space
The crawl space held twenty-six bodies, three more lay elsewhere on the property, and Gacy had planned to seal the whole area under concrete in January 1979.
Q 05Which Disney characters did John Wayne Gacy paint on death row, alongside clowns, skulls and Elvis Presley?
The Seven Dwarfs
The Seven Dwarfs appear among roughly 2,500 pictures Gacy made in his cell, some to commission; one of his lawyers said the sales had earned him $30,000 by 1994.
Q 06Which part of John Wayne Gacy's body was removed after his execution and kept by a defense witness from his trial?
His brain
His brain went to Helen Morrison, who had interviewed Gacy and other serial killers in search of shared traits; the rest of his body was cremated and the location of the ashes is undisclosed.
Q 07By which method did the state of Illinois execute John Wayne Gacy in May 1994, after fourteen years on death row?
Lethal injection
Lethal injection went wrong that night: the chemicals solidified and clogged the tube, stretching the procedure to 18 minutes, and the error is said to have led Illinois to change its method.
Q 08John Wayne Gacy talked victims into putting on handcuffs by pretending to demonstrate what?
A magic trick
A magic trick was the pretext: Gacy cuffed his own hands behind his back, slipped free with a hidden key, then offered to let the other person try.
Q 09Which rock band's keyboardist took the stage name Madonna Wayne Gacy, pairing a pop star with John Wayne Gacy?
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson's keyboardist Stephen Bier used the name from 1989 to 2007, following the band's early habit of joining a female star's first name to a killer's surname.
Q 10What happened in April 1979 to the house near Chicago where John Wayne Gacy had lived since 1971?
It was demolished
It was demolished after investigators dug down to the clay under the foundations, taking up floors and walls in a search that found twenty-nine bodies on the lot.
Q 11Which defense did John Wayne Gacy's lawyers argue at his 1980 murder trial, against his own written objection?
Insanity
Insanity was the plea, backed by experts who called Gacy a paranoid schizophrenic, but the jury needed under two hours to convict him on every count.
Q 12Into which river did John Wayne Gacy throw his last victims from an Interstate 55 bridge during 1978?
The Des Plaines
The Des Plaines became his dumping place once he ran out of room at home; Gacy said he threw five bodies from the bridge, and four were recovered downstream.
Q 13Robert Piest, whose 1978 disappearance led police to John Wayne Gacy, worked part-time at which kind of store?
A pharmacy
Q 21As a model inmate at an Iowa penitentiary, John Wayne Gacy oversaw the installation of which leisure facility?
A miniature golf course
A miniature golf course was one of several projects he ran for fellow prisoners, along with winning a raise in mess hall pay; he was paroled after eighteen months of a ten-year sentence.
Q 22Within months of entering an Iowa prison in 1968, John Wayne Gacy had risen to which position among the inmates?
Head cook
Head cook suited a man who had managed restaurants, and after his parole in 1970 Gacy found work in Chicago as a short-order cook.
Q 23Which qualification did John Wayne Gacy earn inside an Iowa prison in 1969 ahead of a parole hearing?
A pharmacy was the place Gacy visited to discuss a remodeling deal, where the 15-year-old overheard him say his firm paid teenagers almost double the store's wage.
Q 14Which actor earned an Emmy nomination for playing John Wayne Gacy in the 1992 television film To Catch a Killer?
Brian Dennehy
Brian Dennehy later received a letter from Gacy himself, who complained from death row that the two-part film was a fraud.
Q 15Which indie songwriter put a quiet song named after John Wayne Gacy on his 2005 album Illinois?
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens ends the song by turning the narrator's gaze on himself, and he told Paste magazine in 2009 that everyone is capable of what Gacy did.
Q 16John Wayne Gacy won awards in Illinois and Iowa as a rising officer of which civic organization for young men?
The Jaycees
The Jaycees named Gacy the third-most outstanding member in Illinois in 1965, and he even joined a chapter for inmates during his first prison term.
Q 17In which Iowa city did John Wayne Gacy manage three restaurants before his first criminal conviction in 1968?
Waterloo
Waterloo was where his first wife's family owned the restaurants, and where Gacy earned $15,000 a year plus a share of the profits until his arrest.
Q 18After leaving home at 20, John Wayne Gacy spent three months working as an attendant at which kind of business?
A mortuary
A mortuary took him on after a spell with an ambulance service; he slept on a cot behind the embalming room and sometimes served as a pallbearer before going home to Chicago.
Q 19On which charge did police arrest John Wayne Gacy in December 1978 to hold him while a search warrant was prepared?
Cannabis possession
Cannabis possession was a holding charge: Gacy had handed a small bag to a gas station attendant that morning, in full view of the detectives tailing him.
Q 20Whose death on Christmas Day 1969 left John Wayne Gacy sobbing in prison, where he was refused leave for the funeral?
His father
His father had belittled and beaten him throughout childhood, yet had shaken his hand and apologized during a visit three years before dying of cirrhosis.
A high school diploma
A high school diploma came after sixteen courses he took to impress a parole board that had already turned him down once.
Q 24Appointed in 1975, John Wayne Gacy spent four years directing which annual Chicago parade?
Polish Constitution Day
Polish Constitution Day honors the charter of May 3, 1791; Gacy, who had Polish ancestry, ran Chicago's celebration until the year of his arrest.
Q 25John Wayne Gacy's volunteer work for the Democratic Party in Norwood Park Township earned him which title?
Precinct captain
Precinct captain was his reward after he sent his employees to clean party headquarters for free and served on the township's street lighting committee.
Q 26Before moving to Iowa, what did John Wayne Gacy sell as a salesman and department manager in Springfield, Illinois?
Shoes
Shoes were his trade at the Nunn-Bush company, which hired him as a management trainee in 1963 and moved him to Springfield a year later.
Q 27University of Iowa doctors who examined John Wayne Gacy in 1968 diagnosed which personality disorder?
Antisocial
Antisocial personality disorder was their finding, with a warning that he was unlikely to benefit from treatment; a prosecutor in 1980 said heeding it would have kept Gacy locked up.
Q 28From which Chicago transit hub did John Wayne Gacy lure several victims, including his first in January 1972?
Greyhound bus terminal
The Greyhound bus terminal was where 16-year-old Timothy McCoy was waiting for a connection to Omaha; he went unidentified until 1986.
Q 29Which event halted the search of John Wayne Gacy's property in early 1979 until digging resumed that March?
A blizzard
A blizzard that shut down Chicago in January 1979 stopped the work, and when crews returned they found two more bodies, under the patio and the dining room.
Q 30Which streaming service made both a 2021 documentary and a 2025 drama about John Wayne Gacy titled Devil in Disguise?
Peacock
Peacock's six-part documentary used interviews with Gacy himself, and its later eight-episode drama retold the investigation and the grief of the victims' families.