Sometimes, I don’t like the fact that I’m Polish…

historicalmeetups:

Rosalynn Carter
Demure First Lady

meets

John Wayne Gacy
Deranged serial killer

History remembers John Wayne Gacy as the demented “Killer Clown” who lured 33 young men and boys to their deaths, burying many of them in a crawlspace underneath his Chicago home. He was executed for his crimes in 1994.
 
Prior to his arrest, however, John Wayne Gacy was known as a beloved children’s party entertainer, respected businessman, three-time Jaycee Man of the Year, and Democratic Party precinct captain. It was in this latter capacity that he finagled a meeting with First Lady Rosalynn Carter on May 6, 1978.
 
The First Lady was in Chicago attending the Polish Constitution Day Parade, an annual event celebrating the advent of democratic government in Poland. Gacy was serving as its director for the third straight year. Just two months earlier, a 27-year-old man had complained to police that Gacy had invited him into his car to smoke pot, chloroformed him senseless, raped and tortured him repeatedly. No charges were filed due to lack of evidence. Nevertheless, Gacy, wearing an “S” lapel pin—indicating he had been vetted by the Secret Service and was cleared to interact with the First Lady—made his way to the reviewing stand for the traditional VIP “grip-and-grin” photo op.
 
Mrs. Carter was even kind enough to sign the photo for him:
 
To John Gacy
Best Wishes
Rosalynn Carter
 
Gacy later proudly displayed the photograph on the wall of his home, where it was discovered by police searching the premises for corpses. At the time of the Carter assignation, Gacy already had several bodies interred beneath his house. In a surreal coda, Gacy’s attorneys later included the First Lady on a list of character witnesses at his 1980 trial. To the immense relief of the beleaguered Carter White House, she was never called to testify.