John Wayne Gacy by Judge Sam Amirante Read Free Book Online

put a name and a face to the person that would be helping them find Rob.
    They were led past bustling uniformed officers attending to this and that, the organized chaos of the inner offices of a busy police department. Finally, they were shown into a conference room where Officer Ronald Adams joined them, holding a copy of Officer Konieczny’s report. Officer Adams perused the report and eyed the personal Post-it note attached. He looked at the determined family in front of him, and he too was immediately convinced that this was no typical runaway case. He had been in the youth division for six years and had handled many claims of “missing” teens. Experience told him that this claim was real. He suspected foul play but did not tell the family that. He asked the Piests to remain in the conference room while he went to his office and began making telephone calls.
    When Officer Adams retuned to the conference room about a half hour later, he did not have good news.
    “I spoke to Phil Torf. He has not seen or heard from Rob. I asked him about Mr. Gacy. He confirms that Mr. Gacy was at the store twice last night, once to discuss a remodeling job and again because he forgot his appointment book. He does confirm that Mr. Gacy had mentioned that he too hired highschool boys to work for his contracting business. This was in the context of a conversation concerning Mr. Torf’s many young highschool–aged employees. Mr. Torf never saw Rob talking to Mr. Gacy. He said that after you called him last night, he called Mr. Gacy but spoke only to the answering machine. Mr. Gacy has not yet returned the call.”
    Officer Adams was looking at an array of disappointed and dejected faces.
    “I also talked to Mr. Gacy …”
    These words elicited an immediate response.
    “You talked to him?” was the chorus from the momentarily hopeful family.
    “Yes, I talked to him. He confirms that he was at the pharmacy last night but insists that he did not meet Rob or speak to him. He says he did not offer anyone a job.”
    After all faces fell, Officer Adams went on to explain that at Phil Torf’s suggestion, he had also talked to Kim Byers, another young employee at the pharmacy. She specifically stated that at around 9:00 p.m., Rob had told her that “that contractor guy wants to talk to me” just before he ran out the door. However, she had not actually seen Rob talking to Mr. Gacy either inside or outside the pharmacy.
    Then Officer Adams launched into an all-too-practiced soliloquy about the necessity for the family to allow the police to do their job. It was a bad idea and quite improper for family members to intrude into an ongoing missing person investigation, and at times, it could be dangerous. It was best if the family went homeand waited for developments. They would be the first persons contacted, of course, as soon as there was any update in the search.
    The family thanked the officer and left the station, dejected and broken, their hopes for a quick resolution to their nightmare dashed.
    Officer Adams later discussed the matter with his lieutenant, Joseph Kozenczak. He was not in any way giving up on the case. Lieutenant Kozenczak, after having read Konieczny’s report with the personal note attached and having discussed the facts with Adams, was easily convinced that the matter was urgent. He gave the goahead to pursue the matter posthaste with an emphasis on their suspect and the last person reported to have seen Rob Piest, one John Wayne Gacy; and he assigned another officer, James Pickell, to help out. At 3:00 p.m., a fourth member of the force joined the team working on the case. A young detective, Mike Olsen, came in early to help the others. He and Adams used a copy of the Maine West Highschool student directory, which had been given to them by the Piest family, to contact all of Rob’s friends from school.
    The other officers used police channels and shoe leather to check to see if Mr. Gacy had a criminal record of any