Killer Legends Page #10

and that's because

it's here in Chicago

where the notion

of killer clowns

became a reality.

News reporter:
Police found

the decomposed remains

of three bodies.

They suspect there are several

more bodies buried here.

Joshua:
And the most

evil of them all was pogo,

the alter ego of one of the

most prolific serial killers

in all of history,

John Wayne gacy.

Gacy was a sadistic

serial killer

who brutally slayed 33 young men

between 1972 and 1978

in the Chicago suburbs.

Though many have portrayed

gacy as an actual killer clown,

the truth behind

his demented persona

is not so simple.

How many bodies

did you find here?

Bob egan:
Twenty-nine,

twenty-seven under the house...

In the crawlspace,

one under the driveway...

And one under an extension

that he put on the garage.

a former prosecutor

on the gacy case,

and cook county detective

Jason moran.

Bob egan:
When we first saw

the pogo the clown pictures,

is this guy acting as a clown

to get victims...

that's what we thought,

but it wasn't that at all.

He was doing that because

he was the center of attention,

was to make himself

the center of attention.

I still don't like clowns.

( Chuckles ) And I'm an adult

with a gun and a badge.

And it might be

from being a child

during that time because

if you look at pogo the clown,

he was a very creepy clown.

If you look at the pictures,

the make-up around his eyes

when he was portraying pogo,

was triangular,

and the make-up around his mouth

came up to points.

Clown experts said

clowns do not have

any sharp points on their faces.

Why?

Because it scares kids

and it connotes evil.

And so do you think

gacy did this on purpose

to connote evil?

It was subconscious?

No, I don't think at all.

I think it was

purely coincidental.

I'm telling you, that's exactly

what we believed at the time.

Pogo the clown issue

was the subject

of a lot of conversation

during the trial prep.

Joshua:
Although gacy never did

kill anyone dressed as a clown,

he did tell police clowns

could get away with murder,

leading many to believe

his signature clown look

was in fact a true reflection

of his inner evil self.

Ken melvoin-berg

is a noted historian

who understands

the dark side of a clown.

It doesn't matter the type

of mask that you're putting on...

whether it's a clown face...

it's to hide who you are

a little bit

and to be somebody

a little bit different.

It's oftentimes the opposite

of what we portray ourselves

So somebody who is

a truly evil person like gacy

puts it on

to sort of offset that.

Bill Ellis:
What happens

when people costume

is that they're playing with

these internal personalities...

they're repressing

the normal ego...

and they are allowing

some internal personality

to become dominant.

And so you put on

the clown make-up

and you are no longer yourself.

You then become someone

that is unpredictable,

possibly dangerous,

possibly violent.

Game on, my friend.

( Chuckles )

( Horn blows )

Ha-ha-ha-ha.

( Chuckles )

a huge thing for us

here in Chicago

unlike any other American city

where we have clowns

and clown stories

and clown mythology

and clown history

that no other city

in the us has.

It started off a long time ago

in the 1890s

when the columbian exposition

brought clowns around

just to entertain folks.

Going forward in time

a little bit,

up into the 1950s, like Bob bell

who was the original

bozo the clown.

The bozo set is still at wgn

in the building,

and it's allegedly haunted.

In the late '70s is when

you had John Wayne gacy.

Shortly after is when

So for people like me

who are a little bit sadistic,

to me it's made it

that much more interesting

because people

are that much more scared

of clowns these days.

The thing is

that all of the people

that were children

in the 1980s and 1990s

and are telling these

terrifying tales of clowns

to their children.

Speaking of the connection

to clowns in Chicago,

the one site that you guys

have got to see

if you haven't been there before

is showmen's rest

which is a monument

to the circus and clowns

in a cemetery.

Joshua:

Buried in Chicago

were the clowns

and other circus performers

who died in one of the worst

train wrecks

in American history.

On June 22, 1918,

after its conductor fell asleep,

a train plowed

into the idle sleeper cars

of the hagenbeck-Wallace circus.

Those who weren't killed

in the initial impact

burned to death after

the wooden cars caught on fire.

In all, 86 performers

were killed.

With so many burned

beyond recognition,

they were buried in a mass grave

in a section

of the Chicago cemetery

called showmen's rest.

One of those who survived

was Joe coyle,

a famously jovial clown

whose act became

perpetually sad and morose

as he took to dressing in rags.

Coyle would play a sad clown

for the rest of his life.

Rachel:

Joe coyle spoke bitterly

as he lay on a stretcher

and told how his wife

and two babies

had joined him only recently

and how all three

had been crushed to death

at his very side.

"The kiddies had been so glad

to see their daddy," he said,

"I wish I could have died

with them. "

Joshua:
Here, look. See that?

Rachel:

Baldy.

Joshua:

Baldy, 1918, June 22.

Rachel:
They said they

only could name him baldy

because that was the only name

they knew him by

was his stage name.

Joshua:

4 horse driver, 1918.

Rachel:
Unknown male,

unknown male.

Joshua:
Unknown male,

unknown male, unknown male.

All these graves are unknown.

Rachel:
All these graves

are unknown.

Joshua:
Maybe it all started

in Chicago

with the deaths of these clowns.

Maybe all it takes

is a little tragedy

to unlock the even

darker places in our mind.

One thing is for certain...

there's no going back

to the innocent clown.

The scales have been tipped

and the evidence proves it.

Clowns can do scary things.

They can even become killers.

( Sirens wailing )

Voice on radio:
...314,

shooting at century theaters.

14300, east Alameda Avenue.

They're saying somebody

is shooting in the auditorium.

We got seven down

and ( Indistinct ).

I've got a child victim...

I need rescue.

( Simultaneous talking )

News reporter:
Breaking news

coming out of aurora, Colorado.

A scene

of a shooting this morning.

A movie theater

where "the dark knight rises"

was being shown.

Joshua:

On July 20, 2012,

James Holmes commits

one of the worse mass shootings

But if the massacre itself

weren't horrific enough,

James's costuming

was an ominous testament

to the allure

of a very specific clown.

Clown in movie:

Introduce a little anarchy,

upset the established order.

Then everything becomes chaos.

I'm an agent of chaos.

Joshua:
Holmes's embodiment

of the joker,

a villain

who has come to represent

the ultimate destruction

of our civilized world

is no coincidence.

( Explosions )

In our never-ending attempts

to sanitize society,

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