Beneath Your Bed Podcast
Beneath Your Bed Podcast
Pen Pals With A Killer Clown
What happens when a young college freshman tries to infiltrate the minds of notorious serial killers? The answer might surprise you.
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I'm Jen Lee and I'm Jenna Sullivan. And we'd like to welcome you to beneath your bed a podcast where we drag out all those fears at work, beneath our beds from the paranormal to true crime, to the simply strange along the way, we'll be drinking cocktails and sharing stories from our Appalachian upbringings. What happens when a young college freshmen tries to infiltrate the minds of notorious serial killers? The answer might surprise you,
Speaker 2:Jen, how are you? I'm good. How are you, Jen?
Speaker 1:Great. What have you been up to? I'm ashamed to say what I've been up to. It's homey shopping. So I've been shopping for let's see, I bought like a hole in my head. It's an emergency Bigfoot color. Yeah. So that like, if you're being hunted by Bigfoot, you can call for help. I think it's, if you want to attract input, you'd have to let go of this fantasy. It's this a child's toy. And it, it either Hells it's snorts or it can also like grunt. Wow. I'm very anxious to get this in the mail. I truly am. And I also found out from my brother, he's been watching a lot of big foot YouTube videos that the region that our family's from or not even the region it's like right in the immediate area, they have like this sanctuary sanctuary. Yes. And it's in Norton, Virginia, which is news to me, except they call Bigfoot the wood booger. I've never heard that the wood bugger. Yeah. It's called the wood Booker sanctuary. I think we need to do a show on that. Well, they have a festival in October. I'm going next year. I'm totally down for that. My brother wants to go really badly too. So it was actually on animal planet finding big foot TV show. That's crazy. Oh my gosh. That's so cool. So there's a, there's actually, there's a geocashing trail or an event. It's the Woodbrook or geo trail. Oh my gosh. I'm really excited about this. I had no idea. That's really cool. That maybe explains a lot about, about your genealogy, why you're so attracted to it. So what are you having to drink tonight? I'm having nothing super fancy, but you know, recently I made that horrible drink and I was like, I can not have a repeat of an undrinkable. I made a meal, but I did like an Apple cider mule. It's really good. So it's got the, um, you know, I put rum in it. So I guess it's not really a mule. It's what do you call those dark and stormy, but it's not gone either. So it's just it's um, God, what kind of rum is it? I can't remember the other like big name from whatever that is. Is it my Meyer? Yeah. So it's dark rum. And then I put in, um, I haven't made any ginger syrup because I thought I can't do that. I can't do that without you. So I bought some of the store and it's actually really good though. It has the sediment in the bottom, you know? So when you shake off, like it's like good stuff. And then I have lime juice and
Speaker 3:Half Apple cider and half ginger beer. And then
Speaker 1:I just started up and put in some ice. It's really tasty. That's so weird that you did a dark and stormy cause I'm having a dark and stormy. No way. Yes, that's crazy. And I didn't use the goslings rom either with a dark and stormy in case people don't know. I think it's one of the only drinks that if you're at a bar and you're serving it, if you're serving a dark and stormy, you have to use goslings, rum, you have to use it. You can't use any other type of rum because there's some type of proprietary thing with the drink.
Speaker 3:900 knew that until you told me, it makes me wonder like how, how old that recipe is.
Speaker 1:You know, how long that's been, how they managed to pull that off. I don't know. So technically it's not a dark and stormy cause I'm not using goslings, but I'm using, um, I actually have one I've been making dark and Stormy's, I've been using captain Morgan spice, rum. That sounds delicious. The ginger beer is lysine itself. I have the gasoline, ginger beer. I think you gave that to me. So I'm using that tonight. So it has rum, it calls for an ounce and a half of rom and then a half an ounce of lime. And that's it. And the ginger beer. Did you cook? Oh my gosh. No, I forgot. I don't have any more. The ginger syrup. I need to buy some ginger root to make that, but it's super yummy. Yeah. So we make our own ginger simple syrup. So we'll make like huge batches and we always get drunk or doing it too. Yes, we do. It makes it extra special over the summer. I bought some Appalachian ginger beer. Seriously. It was horrendous. Oh no, it tasted like a dirty shoe. I was so like excited and optimistic about it. My hopes were soon dashed. As soon as I tried it, it was terrible bad plus it's from Appalachia. So it was like, I wanted it to be good, but it is not, I do not recommend it at all. So what are we talking about tonight? My story is a story of Jason Moss. And other than me telling you that was going to be the subject of my story tonight. Do you know anything? No, I have not yet.
Speaker 3:She has to look up in fact I didn't want to cause I wanted to be surprised, but that name means nothing to me.
Speaker 1:I remember the story because I watched his interviews years ago and then I actually watched a movie in 2010 about it. So I thought, well, I can go off most of this, you know, from my memory. And I thought, well, at the same time, I still need to go back and research it. And then of course researching it. It's always those stories that you think that aren't going to be that in-depth, or that much detail that turn out to be just rife with all sorts of details and nuances and that sort of thing. I actually, while I was researching and decided, Oh, okay, well I'll go ahead and get this book by this Jason Moss. And that took me further down the rabbit hole. So let me take a drink and I will try to begin from the start. I am sitting here in rapt anticipation in 1993, there was this 18 year old honor student named Jason Moss. And he went to the university of Nevada, Las Vegas. And he was a risk taker in a lot of ways. And he was, you know, in some ways he was addicted to adrenaline. And he also reported that when he went to college, he was disappointed and he was disappointed because he felt like it was just an extension of high school. So he didn't see it as any more challenging than high school. And he was a really, really smart kid. He was a young man, but he's 18. So I'm still going to call him a kid. And he was very, very smart. And he had a little bit of an unusual voice, I think a little bit of an unusual upbringing. So Jason's mom, she was really into true crime. She wouldn't let him read it, but she would, you know, when he was older, I don't think he was like, you know, really young. But she, when they went to the public library, evidently they went there a lot. She would say, Hey Jason, can you believe this? The serial killer may a belt made out of nipples. And he remembers that distinctly because he remembered being embarrassed by that in the public library, Cod's poor kid. So he was also into kickboxing. He was like a weightlifter. He was really into kickboxing. He was very fit. And I believe while he was waiting either to go to kickboxing or maybe afterward, he went into this bookstore that was next door. And he started perusing the true crime. And he came across hers. This one book that caught his interest. And of course, mind you he's 18. So now he can read pretty much what he wants. And when he's looking through the true crime section, he sees this book called the killer clown, which was about the serial killer, John Wayne Gacy. And Jason had always been afraid of clowns when he was a child. And he actually had this reoccurring nightmare involving a clown and his grandmother being killed. So it caught his interest in, he buys the book and he hatches this plan for his honors thesis that he would become pen pals with serial killers. Now, what was he studying in college? I mean, what was his major? I believe it was, it was either, I think it was either criminal justice or it was psychology. Okay. So he wanted to actually go into like law enforcement, like FBI and, um, FBI and secret service. And I think he did internships at least for the secret service. So that's how he was going to, you know, that's where his, that was his career goal. So for his thesis, his honor thesis, he decides that, that there hasn't been enough research to, this is a quote from him and this is in his book and it was also co-written or co the coauthor was Jeffrey Kotler, who was one of his psychology professors. And the name of the book, Jeffrey Kotler. I've heard the name I thought I had too, but there's probably a lot of collars, but anyway, he decided, you know, he and his book with Jeffrey Kotler, the last victim, a true life journey into the mind of a serial killer. Jason stated that the more that he read about serial killers, the more convinced that he became that the so-called experts and the police and forensic psychologists that they weren't exploring, like all the avenues of inquiry. And he said that he wondered what kind of an effort had been made to debrief the victims. Those who had lived to tell the tale. So at this point you could probably surmise, or you might be thinking to yourself that he's pretty cocky in a, in a sense that he's like, well, that all these so-called experts, they haven't looked at this and you know, he was going to set out and he was going to do it. It takes that cockiness though, to get something done. Yeah. And maybe cocky is not, let's say self-assured, you know, I don't want to be negative here. This just say self-assured so he's young, he's smart. He's, self-assured, he's curious. And he's a risk taker. And he began to research extensively about all the killers that he became pen pals with. So that included John Wayne Gacy, of course, Richard Ramirez, who was the, he was also called the night stalker. So he's different than the original night soccer that Michelle McNamara wrote about. Yeah. He was heavily into the cold and Satanism and he's a creepy dude. Oh, really creepy. Some of the other serial killers that he reached out to and corresponded with was Charles Manson. And then also Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh my God. He really, he really got them all. And I remember like 93, that was, I think that was when the Jeffrey Dahmer thing came out because I remember being overseas and hearing, you know, that there had been this terrible serial killer captured. Well, if he wrote to Dahmer, it probably had maybe, maybe 90 is maybe around the time it happened with Dahmer. Cause you have to remember he had been in prison for a few years, I think before. Yeah. Before he started riding him. So Jason, he researched extensively about these killers. He learned as much of course about their crimes, but also their upbringings and their personalities. And he really thought about, you know, what's gonna set me apart from other people that are writing these serial killers because John Wayne Gacy, he would get hundreds of letters each week. We had a lot of them from women. So he really thought about what would appeal to them. And he, because of his fascination with clowns, he took a particular interest in cultivating relationship with Gacy. And if you, I think almost everybody knows about John Wayne Gacy, but just a quick brief. Um, and he was known as a killer clown and he was known as that because he was this upstanding citizen who in his community, you know, he often dressed up as a clown and met with sick children. Or he went to other events. I mean, he didn't go to every single event as a clown, but certain things c ause he was a businessman businessman and he was very successful. And at that time I know that about Gacy. I don't know a lot about him except the clown business. Yeah. He, at that time he was, he had a, he had a construction company and he was pulling in like$300,000 a year. So this is in the seventies, i n the seventies,$300,000 a year was a lot of money. W hat's a lot of money today for a, you know, s omeone salary. I think so Gacy was responsible for the m urders of 33 young men. This was in the Chicago area and he buried almost all of his victims underneath his house, in the crawl space. And these, his victims were actually kids anywhere from anywhere from 14 years old to early twenties. And they kind of fit the profile one, you know, being within that age range, but they were all fit. They were all very fit. So you wonder how this guy who was really out of shape, who's overweight, how would he overpower these young, these fit young men? And so what he would do is he would do this thing called the handcuff trick. Hey, you want to see a trick with the handcuffs and who put the handcuffs on himself? And then he was able to get himself out of it. And then with the, with the young guys, he said, Oh, you want me to try it? You want to try it? Let me try it on you. And a lot of times he would have them over their house. Like either he would offer them a job. They were working for him. He would apply them in Foos. I think even drugs, you know, they watch pornography. I'm going to say the handcuff thing too. I mean, there's definitely a sexual element to that for him. Yeah. And that, I think it just to actually just have complete control over them. So when he would handcuff them, he would handcuff them behind the back if I remember correctly. So they were really kind of disabled or incapacitated at that point. And so he would say, okay, okay, let's see you get out of it. And they would try and they would try and they weren't able to, and then he would pull out the key and he's like, well you need this. And then from there on, it just went quickly downhill. And he also, he had this thing, he called the rope trick and what the rope trick was is that he would put a rope around their neck and then have some type of, let's say a stick or something. And he would use that as a garage. So he would use that to either kill them quickly or to slowly kill them, like make them pass out and then release it, released the pressure they would come to and then he would do it again. And is that how he killed most of his victims by strangulation? Yeah. There were some that I believe were stabbed and I think there might've been a case where someone was shot, but a lot of it was strangulation if I remember correctly, but I can't be 100% certain, but it sounded like he killed most of his victims through strangulation. He would also pick up guys that he would call hustlers or male sex workers and who knows if they were really sex workers or not, but that's how he characterized them. And I think he used that as he used that as an excuse to say, well, they got what was coming to them. Terrible. Yeah. So back to Jason, he was so thorough in his research that he actually went to a gay bar and mind you, he's not gay. He has a girlfriend he's comfortable in his sexuality. So it wasn't even questioning because that was my thought too. It's like back in the early nineties, what heterosexual straight guy would go to a gay bar. This is the era of Matthew Shepard, you know? Yes. He goes to the gay bar and I think he asked the bartender or something, how he could possibly kind of connect, get connected with a male sex worker. And I think he directs him at that time to some ads. So he reads this ad and this is pre Craigslist. And he meets up with a male sex worker and he wants to ask him questions about his profession. But the guy was like, you know, is he a cop? Or he was very suspicious and very reticent in the beginning. And from this guy, Jason learned like the lingo that was used in sex work. And how do you go about picking up someone? How do you know if they're a sex worker or how do you know if someone's interested in sex, which is very smart of him. So he learned all these things because he wanted to come across as legit. And he wanted again to create this persona to Gacy of this lonely vulnerable guy or young man who had like this turbulent upbringing, especially with his father, because Gacy had in his father was very abusive towards him. Okay. And he also wanted to let on, like he was questioning or ambiguous about his sexuality, because I think in his mind, if he wrote Gacy and right off the bat, he said that he identified as gay or something that Gacy would maybe find that suspect or be suspicious of it. But he still wanted to stand out. He wanted to stand out to Gacy as potentially being gay. This guy really is smart. He's very smart. He's very smart. And he kept meticulous notes of all his contacts with all these zero killers. But he really gets wound up with Gacy predominantly, mainly. And in October of 93 he writes Gacy his first letter and he sends it in the beginning of the first few letters. He starts off and he calls him like dear mr. Gacy. And this is a line from one of his letters. It says, dear mr. Gacy, I know what it's like to be bored and alone. This constant screaming of my father keeps me secluded in my room when I'm not in school or at the gym. I hate it here at home. And I guess I understand what it's like to need a friend that was in his first letter. It's interesting that he put the detail about the gym in there. So maybe Gacy would get the sense that he was this fit guy. That if that was, sounds like that was Daisy's type and that's exactly what he was trying to do. Well, he was, you know, he knew that or he felt that Gacy would find that even more enticing. So just within seven days he receives a letter from Gacy. Oh my God. And again, you have to keep in mind that Gacy got hundreds of letters each week. So Jason's as intended Jason's letter really stood out to him. So Gacy, when his letter, it was only like a paragraph, but he also sent a questionnaire and it was a pretty extensive questionnaire. I forgot how many pages it was, but it asked questions. And I just wrote down a few of them just to kind of give you an idea. I think one of the first questions was, well, why do you know, why did you write me? Who was your childhood hero? And then this one, I thought this one was really really telling it says, ask him to fill in the blank. Nobody knows about blank. So Jason, he said, when he answered that, Oh, and another question they asked too was what is your, your perfect mate? And it had, he could choose, I think male, female. And he crossed those out and Jason crosses out and put partner. Okay. So again, he wasn't trying to come off right off the bat, like he was gay, but he wanted to suggest that there was some, you know, he questioned his sexuality there. And then with the fill in the blank, nobody knows about blank. Jason, who's thinking about, okay, how do I, what do I say? How do I respond to that? And he says, nobody knows that. I think about being a male stripper, which is to me, is clever. It is very clever. Yeah. And the letters that follow Gacy, he tried to find out about Jason's sexual attitudes and his behaviors. And one of the lines in Gacys first letter letters read. And I just think this is important to kind of quote it just so you can see how, how he's grooming him. Gacy said, one of the things that you should know about me is that I'm, open-minded outspoken and very, and not very tactful. Non-judgemental liberal and by and apprentice easy as bisexual. So I guess in case Jason didn't know what that was. And as the letters continued, Gacy would even, you know, make a point or bring up to the fact to Jason, that he couldn't believe that Jason had never been molested by a coach or a parent or family friend. He just, just seemed like that. He just thought that was par for the course. And it's probably cause that's what he did to other kids. Jason,
Speaker 3:He, he initially was
Speaker 1:Eventually shared his phone number with Gacy. Cause he had a separate line in his house. And I forgot to mention this in the beginning, Jason told his parents what he was going to do and they didn't want him to do it, but he did it anyway, but they were still aware of it. But what he would try to do is he didn't want them to know. I guess how many letters he was getting from Gacy. So he had run out to meet the mail lady to get the mail. Eventually Jason shares his phone number with Gacy and they begin to talk like every Sunday, Jason has a younger brother. He's like 14 years old. And Gacy started expressing interest in Jason's younger brother. Who's 14 is his name was Jared. He's very inquisitive about him to keep him on the hook. Jason went to his younger brother and he's like, look, you know, I'm trying to keep this guy engaged and interested in me, but he's asking a lot about you. You don't have to write him a letter. I'm not asking you to write him a letter. But if I write a letter to him, can you copy it in your handwriting? That way he thinks that you I'm so creeped out by that.
Speaker 3:I know. I know. So,
Speaker 1:So Jason gets Jared to go along reluctantly with this for awhile. And you can tell that, well, Gacy starts actually he started calling it their project. He was trying to get Jason to
Speaker 3:Molested younger brother. Oh my God. Yeah. I wasn't aware
Speaker 1:Of any of this part of the story. So he was calling it their project or the project. I think he was calling it the ProTech and that way he could refer to it and Gacy at this point in time, he's wait, he's actually going to be executed probably within six months. And he was still appealing everything. So I guess he wanted some type of plausible deniability that, you know, he could just refer to the, to the project. So in other words,
Speaker 3:Words he could refer to the project is something that he needed to continue living for complete. But the pro the project was this guy molesting his younger brother. Am I getting that right?
Speaker 1:No, he wanted Jason to do it right then and there. Oh, okay. And he was calling it the project because he was trying to appeal his conviction and you know, the death sentence. So I guess I think Jason had mentioned that, that that's why he thought that he was calling it the project. He was telling Jason also in letters though, how to go about it. And it was really, really gross. So I should have started off this story too with a warning or what I was going to be discussing. So I won't go into the specific study said in his letter, but it was really disgusting. And no matter the conversation they had, he would always drive it to some type of sexual conversation and in a letter to Jason, because Jason was trying to express some like, well, you know what? I really don't want to do that. I don't know about that, John. So we went from calling him, mr. Gacy to John. You know, I don't know about that. John and Gacy in one of his letters to him said, quote, don't worry. He's not going to replace my number one. Cause he was thinking that Jason was somehow mil was somehow jealous.
Speaker 3:God, that's such a, like has such a twisted understanding of everything.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. It was so twisted. So twisted, so demented. And it became apparent to Jason that if you wanted to maintain any type of relationship with Gacy and continue to string him along, he would have to make something up about molesting Jared. That was sound plausible and keep him keep Gacy happy.
Speaker 3:Couldn't that be incriminating if even if it's lies that you're writing. Well,
Speaker 1:It felt so too. Cause it was like, it just seemed very childish of Gacy to be as smart as he was to think that, you know, no one could read those letters and realize that what he was trying to set up. But I just think he was so driven by sex and this need to control and to dominate that he just basically couldn't help himself. But in his mind, like if he was somehow and evasive in some parts of these letters that it wouldn't, you know, they couldn't giggle him on it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And it sounds like Jason, he was so good at entering into somebody else's language in their code words and all of that. So that he was able to do that really well with Gacy. And so they were almost talking, they were talking about things in this metaphorical way, probably that like they're actually language.
Speaker 1:He was good at that. So yeah. I'm glad that you brought that up. He was, he was really good at that. And Jason, just listening to this, of course he can extract himself from the situation at any moment. But at this point he, I think he's just so intent on achieving his goal, that he just can't let go. So he makes up like, or eludes to that he's, you know, doing stuff with his or he's molesting his younger brother. His brother was like 14 and he told Gacy or he, he poses Jared and told Gacy that, Hey, my parents got me a typewriter, so I'm gonna start using a typewriter. So that way he could just teach us, took Jared completely out of the equation. That's good. Yeah. That was a smart, clever way to do that too. Yeah, he was very clever. He was very clever and Gacy didn't seem to catch on to that. And Jason had remarked in his book that mentally, it really had this cumulative effect on him of, you know, something comparable to sexual abuse. I'm sure because you imagine those things when he's talking about them and wanting you to do them, you are thinking, okay, well he wants me to do X and this is horrendous. And that control issue that you were talking about earlier. I mean that even, I don't know if Jason would have said this or not. It'd be interesting to get your take on it, but that Gacy, at least saw himself as in control and was controlling some of his imaginings. Oh, he was. And he's just, um, master manipulator. If you go back, if you read the book and you read all the letters, you can just see it building and know that this is what he's done a million times over. I want to read this book. It sounds fascinating. And so there was like a gap between in time, as far as it had been quite some time, I think since Jared had corresponded with Gacy. So he, Jared AKA, Jason sent a letter to Gacy the typewritten letter and just, you know, made an excuse for not getting back to him and Gacy writes back immediately and he opens it with hi ho bro, what is it? And I guess calling them like a ho, okay, they're both, I don't know, very sexual people. And he scolds Jared basically for not writing them back quickly enough. And you know, he continues to groom who he thought was Jared. And his letter said, what you have to understand is that talking to me is like talking to a buddy. He said, we three share a common bond. And just like, I have become Jason's big brother. He knows that he can count on me not to laugh or make fun of what he tells me and nor am I ever going to be judgmental of what he says. And he says, Jason can. I mean, he says that Jericho trusts him as well. Do you think Casey really felt that? Or do you think that was more of an manipulation tactic, total manipulation tactic and I'll, you'll see even more why and when Gacy writes Jason, he, at one point he said something that was really Jason thought was odd and was trying to guess what he was trying exactly what he was trying to communicate to him. But Gacy had written him and, you know, made some statement that the Bible preaches against taking this. This is a quote actually. So Gacy, I hate to keep quoting, but I just want to show for word it's important. Cause their letters, you know, I think it's important to hear in their voices and how he goes about, you know, with manipulation, how it just builds and how masterful he is at it. If you, if you were a young kid who was vulnerable, how easy that would be to take advantage of someone. So in his letter he says to Jason, he says the Bible preaches against taking her own life. But sometimes it's the right thing to do. Your life will hit rock bottom someday. And when the time is right, you'll know what to do and also how to do it. So Jason was floored by that and he was thinking, does he, you know, want me to kill myself? Or does he, you know, what does he mean by when the time is right? You know, or at some point in my life, it will be the right thing to do. You just kind of stuck in his mind fast forward. It isn't too much longer that Gacy invites Jason to visit him at, um, Menard correctional center and Illinois cause Illinois that's where he was at. And this probably would have been around Jason's spring break. Okay. And he told Jason that if you come here, you know, I'll share more information with you. You know, although I'm innocent, I'll share more information about the crimes and the victims. And so he was, you know, trying to learn Jason N and he also said that he would pay for the flight, his stay there. How is he paying for all of that? Because I, he was a person of means, but in prison, what you lose all of that. It doesn't sound like it, it doesn't sound like it. I think he still had some means and we think he spent it all on his attorneys, but maybe attorneys were less expensive then. And he also though he painted like pictures of clowns. And I think he did one of the snow white and the seven doors. And some of those was sell for thousands and thousands of dollars. So people collect those it's so creepy. People will probably sending them money in prison too. So Jason goes to his parents and he announces to them, or about this invitation that he got. And of course his mom is like, no way you're not going. And my being a parent, I never would have gone along with the letter writing either. But, you know, she says no way, the father's very passive. He butts heads with his mom a whole lot. And she was the one who was saying that he couldn't go. And I think she even talks to Gacy at one point. And he's like, Gacy tells her, well, I can have the warden call you. And would that make you feel better? Which would not make me feel better as a parent would call her when Jason would call her or after they've met or would call her prior to okay. To explain like the security measures. Okay. And so the warden calls and he tells Jason's mom that they would be seated in two separate rooms and there'll be the class partition between them. And that there would be guards walking the halls every few minutes. And also that Gacys hands and legs would both be shackled and there would be, be a security camera. Okay. But what Jason's Von didn't know was the warden. Wasn't the warden, the warden was a guard, one of the guards. Oh, that Gacy con or something. Yeah. He could pay them. He really ingratiated himself with the guards. He also still like, you know, some people and even like some of the guards saw him as a celebrity because he was a celebrity, but for all the wrong reasons. So I imagine that there was probably money involved for this one. Cause that's a really big thing to do. So Gacy tells Jason, okay, fly in and I'll pay for your flight and hotel. And I've made arrangements for my attorney to pick you up. When Jason gets there, there is a man waiting on him, but he doesn't resemble anything like Casey's attorney the way that Gacy had described him. And so they introduce themselves and this guy introduced himself as Ken. And he explained that he handled basically a lot of Gacys errands and different things, even things for his legwork, for his illegal stuff. So they go back to the hotel and Ken says to the clerk is like, you know, one room, double beds. And Jason's like, no, we're supposed to be in, it has to be two rooms. And Ken's like kind of whining about it. Well, John doesn't want to pay for two rooms. And Jason was, was adamant. And he's saying, look, my parents, this is one of the, one of the stipulations for me being able to come is that I have my own room. So he breaks down and he gets him another room. Good. And you're wondering like why this is going on. And what I think is happening is, is that Gacy was setting up like some type of sexual encounter. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Okay.
Speaker 3:I was just thinking that I'm like, he was clearly, he was probably manipulating this Ken guy because he wanted this other fantasy to be playing out on the fringes. So it's, it's almost like just these circles within circles of
Speaker 1:Abusive behavior. That's a great way to describe it. That's a great way to describe it. So Ken takes Jason to Menard and it's located, I think, is in Chester field or Chesterville and Illinois, not that that's really all that pertinent to the, to the story, but he takes him there and he tells him what he needs to do. Like what the process will be. Just so I guess Jason, isn't overwhelmed and Jason's asking him a lot of questions at this point. He's very nervous. So Jason finally goes inside and he's led back down this corridor or to where there's like a larger visiting area. Then the guard lets him in. And then he sees Gacy standing there and Gacys is only handcuffed. And he was nervous. And he's calling back to the guard, like when will you be back? The guard seemed like he had like this kind of slight grin on his face and turned his back. And I forgot what he said, you know, later or something. So there wasn't going to be this patrolling every few minutes. Like his mom was lit. Like they both were led to believe and there's no glass, they're just in the same room. Well, that's the large visiting area. But what happens is, is that Gacy is like gestures towards him to go to this other room. So there are other little rooms back there and some of them are like really, really, um, really small. And there was nobody else back there. Again, there's no partitions between them. There's certainly any Arnone guards back there. And Gacy only has handcuffs like loosely on his wrists and he's not shackled at the legs. And Jason also noticed like there was a small janitorial room or closet that was across from them with a chair in it. And the camera was turned away from them and their little room that they were in. And they're like right up on each other. And again, you know, Jason is, Jason is a big guy. He probably had a foot on Gacy. He was kind of barrel chested or broad chested. Did he have broad shoulders? He did. He did have broad shoulders. So, you know, he thought to himself, well, I can always overpower this guy. I'm a, kickboxer I'm strong. So he had that in the back of his mind, but he was still like shaking, you know, he's like his heart was pounding out of his chest. And so Gacy is very friendly with him for a few hours and, you know, made him at ease. And after a few hours there was, there was like this noticeable, extreme shift in Gacys friendly behavior and mood and went to like this really angry one. And he tells Jason that you, you know, you're alone with me and you're going to do, as I say, Oh, so he was done grooming him at this point, Gacy. He lying as web probably. And Jason's supposed to visit him three times three, have three visits. And I can't believe you said they're together for hours. I just, I think things have probably changed since then, because I just sounds unheard of, to me, I'm sure they have changed, but you still probably have guards that are shady that let go down. You know, that's true. So he's locked in here with Gacy and h e's still trying to get this information from him, t he information he wants. C ause C asey supposedly has like these files or binders that are full of information that other people haven't seen, certainly not the FBI or prosecutors or anything. And so Jason wants this information. He wants to look at it, but he, in order to do that, he can't just break out. Like I'm g oing t o kick your. He has to continue in this role of this kind of passive kid. Exactly. And I was thinking, when you were talking about how he was trembling, even though he's this, you know, clearly a fit and big guy, how hard it would be to be that afraid. And yet also having to keep the act up because you have to have this other part of your brain, you know, you're using. And I feel like the fear response really would prevent you from having enough in the executive functioning part of your brain to pull all of that other stuff off. Oh 100%. I mean, I know I would be just breaking bad at that point as best
Speaker 3:I could, you'd be running for your life. I just know
Speaker 1:Going out that way. Um, so he still trying to, you know, keep up this persona and then Gacy just is berating him and raising his voice and yelling and he's telling them how Wiki is. And he said to him, and this goes back to Jared. He said, you know, if I was a bad guy, I tell the cops what you did to your brother. And they take him away when he's saying these things and he's berating Jason and telling him how weak he was and telling him he would go to jail. If he told the police of what he was supposedly doing with his brother and, you know, do you really want to go to jail? So he's trying to blackmail him. Also at one point he gave Jason some baby oil that he had hidden away and he, and he threatened to stab Jason with a pen that he was gripping in his hand. If he didn't, what if he didn't? Well, he was like, he wanted him to like jerk him off or something different. I should've mentioned this at different points throughout this. He, especially on his braiding him, Gacys like grabbing himself and undoing his zipper and that kind of thing. So in then also that chair, that Jason kind of thought was out of place in the janitor's closet. He wanted to rape Jason, I guess, over the chair. Oh my God.
Speaker 3:Rape. Or have consensual sex. I mean, was he actually going to try to rape her?
Speaker 1:Well, if you're like coursing somebody with a pen in your hand, and he's saying like, I can stab you in the neck with this pen and watch you bleed out. That's true. Yeah. And at that point, Jason, instead of karate in him or kickboxing or whatever the they do instead of doing that, he just breaks down sobbing at this point. And he's pleading with Gacy and like, why are you doing this? I thought you were my friend. And as he went on, like with the c rine a nd the pleading Gacy, I think just grew tired o f, t hey both grew tired and t hat time ended that they were together. I guess Jason theorizes, that G acy thought Jason was not going to return the next day after going through that. So he off, n o, I can't imagine. I c annot. And like I said, there's a lot more to this story than I even realized. So he offers to give Jason a painting the next day and also to allow him to go through his files. And that's what Jason really wanted. So Jason still went the next day. He, well, first of all, when Jason goes back out and he sees Ken, K en p icks h im up, he tells Ken what happened. And Ken is like, Oh, I can't believe h e, he did that. And you know, that's not like him and
Speaker 3:It's not like John Wayne Gacy to Ken.
Speaker 1:I think might've been related in some way to Gacy. N also he just seemed like, kind of like a poor pitiful person that he was like a hanger on and Gacy afforded him a celebrity to a certain extent. So he, you know, he acts like, he's all surprised by this. And Jason, he goes back for another visit and Gacy again just started berating him. But at one point I think before then he said to Jason, do you want to see the, the rope trick? And Jason's like, okay. So he puts this pen under this bracelet Jason was wearing and he starts to turn it to the point where it's putting all this pressure and hurting him. And even at one point too, I think he, I think he was trying to kiss him at one point. And again, he was threatening him with the pen and Jason was just completely freaked out and scared. And during their conversation though, Gacy did slip a few times and said things that incriminated him. Although he would always say that he was set up that he didn't do this. He, you know, there's 33 bodies in your, in your crawlspace. Exactly. And again, during this visit and during, with the rope trick that he was using with his bracelet, the pen, he was starting with a pen and he was also groping him. So he was around victimized. I mean, clearly this guy was, he was, he got a lot more than he bargained for. So at that time, Ken comes in with a guard who's approaching. And Ken had said out loud before they got to the room, like, Oh, we're here kind of alerting Gacy because obviously he knew that Gacy did this kind of stuff or at least had sexual encounter sometimes when he had visitors there and he was just kind of alerting them to the fact that, you know, Hey, we're just right around the corner. So you need to put your Dick back in your pants or whatever. So Jason, he's supposed to go back the next day. And he's like, tells Kent,, no, I am not.
Speaker 3:I'm so pleased for Jason. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Jason has grown to a new like he's yeah. He's reached a new level of growth in emotional maturity. Yeah. Well fuck's my word. It wasn't his, but he was just like, no, there is no way I'm going back. Absolutely not. So he gets, he goes home. And when he comes home, he doesn't, he wants to save face with his mom too, because she's been telling him all along that he shouldn't go and he wasn't going to be successful. Or why would he want to do this? So when he comes home, he didn't tell his parents or his brother. What happened? What happened next was is that when Gacy would call, of course these would be collect calls and Gacy had Ken call to try to call Jason and Jason didn't pick up. He just let his recorder get it. And Ken had made some remark to Gacy. Like he wouldn't answer. And there was just some weird glitch with Jason's voice his recorder. Cause at that time, you know, they were taped some weird glitch with it that it continued to record when Gacy and them, I guess, well, maybe they thought they hung up and they didn't. And Gacy is going off about Jason and starts talking to Ken about how he's going to blackmail him, how he's going to tell people about what he did to his little brother. And so that was part of the plan too. I think it, uh, in addition to getting off on trying to get Jason to do this, he also was going to use that as leverage over him. Yeah. It served a double purpose for him. It went on for a little bit and then Jason picks up the phone and he told Gacy that he had the blackmail plans on tape and he threatened to release them to like various entertainment shows, like hard copy and, and places like that. And Jason was still worried about what Gacy might do. So he did share with his parents everything. Okay. Every single thing. And they were supportive. And I think the might even looked into getting your attorney or something. I hope he had some
Speaker 3:Counseling, some therapy after that.
Speaker 1:It never mentioned that I could see that he did, he all this, like with a visit, this will happen shortly before Gacy was executed. So he could have just been like, Oh, I'm going to take one more person out and I'm going to kill him. Or maybe he wouldn't have gone that far as to kill him because he still thought like, to the very end that somehow that the execution was going to be stayed and Gacy was executed on May 10th, 1994. So you figure this all started in 93. So this is within less than a year's time, frankly.
Speaker 3:He was executed. Was he executed in that prison or was he moved and how was he killed?
Speaker 1:He was killed through lethal injection. And for some reason I thought it was there. Um, but there was some glitch with the execution, like some of the chemicals weren't working. Right. So it took longer to kill him. So Jason's completely traumatized as anybody would buy these whole events, but he still kinda, you know, he becomes very depressed about it, you know, after Gacys execution.
Speaker 3:Oh, I was just going to say, I think there's that traumatic bonding that happens between victim and perpetrator that it can happen. And I imagine I'm just imagining that Gacys death was maybe hard on him in some ways,
Speaker 1:Like it was, this whole thing was a real head fog. I mean, he didn't, you know, he wasn't saying that, Oh, this never should have happened. Like he never should have been executed. Right. So when I was telling you from the beginning of the story that Jason wanted to become, wanting to work in law enforcement, like the FBI or secret service, or he actually became a criminal defense attorney. Really. Wow. I didn't see that one coming and on June six and 2006, he dies by suicide in his home. Jason does? Yeah. At the age of 31. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh. And I tried to find more information on it. The few things that I did read were very short, but evidently as an adult, he had suffered from depression, like severe depression. So young, so young, but you know,
Speaker 3:Remembering what Gacy said to him and if you're really depressed and you have this in the back of your mind, plenty healthy planted in your mind, but there's almost something that feels, I'm not saying it is supernatural, but you know what I'm trying to say that it almost feels like Gacys murdering him from beyond the grave.
Speaker 1:[inaudible] and that's why I wanted to include that part in there. Cause I thought it was really significant. Absolutely. That he planted that in his head. And then the book was published in 1999 and then seven short years later, he's dead. And what is the book called again? What's the title? The book is called the last victim. Okay. Oh, and the co author Kotler who had been one of his psychology instructors. He talked into actually writing this book with him. Co-writing the book. He talked him into it cause he was initially reluctant to do so. And he was saying that he had talked to Jason, not too long before his suicide, because they were talking about making, you know, they'd been offered like a movie deal. It would be an amazing movie. And well, it was made into a movie in 2010. What was that called? Oh, it was called I think dear mr. Gacy. And it was really panned, so it's too bad cause it, I watched it many years ago and I can't remember everything that was in it. I just remember being really freaked out by it. Does the movie end with his suicide? I don't know. I don't know because Jason died. It was in 2006. So if the movie was released in 2010, it could have had it probably hit, maybe had some reference at the end to it. I don't know. I'm afraid to watch it again because it's just so I'll watch it if you watch it so creepy. It is creepy. It's very, u m, the word that just keeps coming to my head is trauma trauma trauma seems like Jason went in with noble intentions, but it was also self-serving b ecause he was curious and we all want to serve our own curiosity and you know, we all believe that we can do things that others can't, but just seems like he was o ut m aneuvered in the chess game. And I know it's more complex than that, but um, I'm just thinking about how that must've stayed with him all those years. And how you wonder, like, did he have a genetic predisposition to depression or did he suffer from it because of these traumas or was it a little bit of both, but I would think that that definitely had to play into his depression, I think a hundred percent. It must've, I think there's what do they call it? The stress diaphysis theory that, um, you can have an underlying predisposition, but it's, it can be triggered by things that happen in your life. Yeah. Especially traumatic things. What's it called? Um, I think it's stress diathesis. It could be wrong. I have to look it up on my phone, but I'm pretty sure that's what it's called kind of the interplay between genetic and then what happens to you and the co-author has professor Jeffrey Kotler. I know, I know that name, John. I probably have trying to remember what he writes about, but I feel like he's done some books on the counseling profession and um, I know I have a book by him. I just can't place it. You have to find out, let me know he teaches or at the time of comments that he made shortly after Jason's, um, suicide. He, I think was teaching maybe in California at that time at a university or a college there. And if you back up just a bit, and this is the last little thing that I'll talk about, he did correspond with other serial killers, but I didn't even want to go straight down those avenues. And you know, one of them being Ramirez well, Ramirez again, was heavily involved in the cult and black magic and that sort of thing. And Jason had to write like he was into that and that he would be basically a disciple of Ramirez and Koller did say that it did make him wonder that he committed. If you look at it, June six, 2006, that's six, six, six. And he did wonder like, is that a coincidence? Or did he plan that, that day planned it that way for a reason?
Speaker 3:I mean, this guy seems like no detail escaped him. He was very, he was very linguistically attuned and he was attuned to what words meant and what they suggested beneath. So it makes me think it couldn't possibly be a coincidence. And what does that mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. And there was no mention of a, um, letter or anything like that. He did have a wife and I could not find anything about that. If you want to go back and listen to some of his interviews, he was actually on 2020, there was like a two part series and that extra show, like the entertainment show. And evidently he also appeared on the Howard stern show, but I couldn't find that I couldn't find any I'll have to
Speaker 3:Look. I really definitely want to read the book. I'll
Speaker 1:Share it with you from a distance. I'll drop it off or something, but it's, I think it's a really good book. I mean, it just gives you, I think, insight into basically what he set out to do saying that maybe there wasn't as not enough insight from her perspective of the victim.
Speaker 3:And I wonder, and I don't know if he talks about this in the book, but I wonder what new insights he felt like he had about Gacy or what Casey's motivations were. I mean, cause I feel like people are already figured that Gacy was a sexual predator and that he was motivated by sex and manipulation. So did he really discover anything new? Although if you think about, if you think about what it, how it effected him, maybe he understood not from Gacys perspective, but he was able to understand how Gacy could manipulate these people and what it felt like to be one of his victims. And you could argue that he was one of his victims and maybe that's what he discovered.
Speaker 1:If you think about it. I mean, he was able to get on paper kind of, you know, line by line of how the script that Gacy used to, to manipulate people. And then he did say many, a times that, you know, when he was there, he was thinking to himself, Oh my God, this is how, this is how this happened to other people. And I know exactly how they feel. And when he was interviewed, they asked him if he would do it again. And he said, if I had any idea, if I knew, then what I knew now there's no way I would've done this. Oh gosh.
Speaker 3:And it's crazy that two, two days, not even whole days, but two parts of days could impact your life that much.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And he was also like immersed in reading about all that stuff. But then again, there's so many people in society that are immersed in reading,
Speaker 3:We better take extra good care of our mental health. My friend. Yes. Yes. Let's look out for each other. Well, so what did you think? I thought it was amazing. Are we still recording or are we sorry? Um, I thought it was an amazing story. I think it may have been the best story that you've told yet and it's just really telling yeah, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. And I, from your story, I feel a little traumatized just, yeah, I feel a little bit, you feel dirty, dirty. I, that was, that was the word I was thinking, but I didn't want to say it, but I'm glad you did. Um, I do feel dirty. I feel it's, it's just, it's very disheartening to think that evil sometimes gets the upper hand and yeah, you're right. It does. It is a hard pill to swallow that, you know, I think I always want to believe that it doesn't that good prevails that, but I think, I always believe that good is way more powerful than evil. And I think on the whole it is. But I think there are times there are places where evil is predominant. I will definitely
Speaker 2:Lend you or give you the book. My friend, because I don't know. I don't think I'll ever reread this again in my lifetime with that we would like to thank everyone who listens. And the best thing you can do to help us grow is to like review and subscribe on iTunes and even better yet if you tweet about us or post about us on Facebook and tell your friends, if you think that they would like us,[inaudible].