A man who escaped from 'killer clown' John Wayne Gacy and encountered him on a number of occasions has recalled his harrowing first experience.
Gacy was a sex offender who raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 young men and boys in Chicago, US in the 70s.
His nickname 'killer clown' came from performing as a clown before he got caught.
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All of his known murders were inside his ranch-style home in West Summerdale Avenue.
Typically, he would lure the victim over, pretend to do a magic trick while using handcuffs, then brutally rape and murder them by asphyxiation or strangulation. Gary would bury around 26 of the known victims on his property.
Tony, a survivor from Kentucky, first met the murderer when he was 15 in the summer of 1970.
After playing around at a nearby state park, the predator approached him to ask if he would like to go back to his hotel room for a drink.
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Having only just turned 15, Tony agreed to go up to his room where he was presented with 'sex books' of 'just boys', along with a suitcase of handcuffs.
"I was starting to panic a little bit," Tony told Soft White Underbelly.
"Inside my mind I'm thinking 'this is bad, I got to get out of here'. So I take my beer, it was about half full, I set it down to my left heel and I said 'the next time he goes to the bathroom I'm going to take this cooler, and I'm either going to throw it through the window or I'm going to move it where I can get away'.
"So he goes in the bathroom again and his demeanour, his eyes, start to get a little squinty.
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"He was changing, he was he was looking at me, when he was sneering at me, when he would walk by and I'm pretty big kid for 15, but I knew I didn't have enough, this was a powerfully built man.
"And so as soon as he goes in the bathroom and the faucet comes on, I grab the cooler, I take it over into the far corner, right by the window, and when he comes back out after, he had mentioned the chains and the shackles and all that stuff."
Tony then asked the killer clown if he had any snacks before kicking over his beer to try and make an escape.
"I said 'can I have another beer?' So he looks where the cooler was, he didn't see the cooler and he goes starts looking for the cooler. Well he walks past me and around both beds and I hit the door.
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"As I step out, he grabs me and he hits me a couple of times but I just kept back peddling because I didn't have on a shirt for him to grab.
"I didn't have any shoes, so I back out of there, walked past the desk clerk Ella and I get on my bike."
Tony met the killer again when he was 18 at a local marina where he worked.
He said he went 'chest to chest' with Gacy to confront him about what happened.
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"Hey, do you remember me?", he asked Gacy.
"No, I don't remember you," Gacy said.
"Yes, you do," Tony replied.
Though the altercation ended quickly when Tony's boss came outside.
Tony's testimony helped lead to Gacy's conviction in 1980, when he was sentenced to death. The murderer was executed by lethal injection in 1994.
Topics: Crime, True Crime, US News
Anish Vij