John Wayne Gary publicly urged the grieving mother of one of his victims to kill herself with a drug overdose.
Dolores Nieder, mum of 19-year-old John Mowery who was murdered by the Killer Clown in 1977, frequently appeared on TV during the 1980s commenting on the post-sentencing lifestyle of the Chicago serial killer.
In September 1989, she was a guest on Geraldo, where she shared in painful detail how upset she was that Gacy was being given access to art materials, and also that there was such a lucrative market for his work.
Seething with anger, she says: “Gacy is given art supplies to do drawings which are sold. As a matter of fact one of his paintings was put in to the Art Institute in Chicago.”
Dolores recalls that she called the Governor's office to complain that some of Gacy’s drawings were being sold at the Illinois State Fair. An aide was dispatched to confiscate them, but by the time they arrived there, they had all sold.
She continues: “They tell me he is given art supplies for rehabilitation. I don’t want Gacy rehabilitated. I don’t want Gacy to have any more appeals. I want him to die. He snuffed out 33 lives what we know of. What he has done to the victims and families is unbelievable.”
But if you thought that Gacy, who was sentenced to death for the murders of 33 young men was too busy rustling up shoddy portraits of clowns and Elvis to watch TV, you are wrong - he was very aware of public opinion about him.
Speaking in 1992, he sneered: "That one mother who goes on television all the time, who thinks I should be given 33 injections, I think she ought to take 33 Valiums and go lay down.
“If her Marine son was so great, then why the hell did he run away from home all the time?"
John Mowrey was a U.S. Marine and studying to be an accountant when he went to Gacy’s house to find out about a job - he was never seen again. He was unlike a lot of Gacy’s other victims, who had run away from home.
Nieder was furious with Gacy’s comments, and said it was hard for her to believe Gacy thought he had the right to say anything about her at all.
She said: “When you have a child taken out of your life, it is like a little piece is taken out of your heart. You can never forget it. Everything keeps revolving back to the day he did this or he did that, and we reminisce."
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