It was a brisk December afternoon in Cook County, Illinois, and everything seemed to be going well. Children were out of school and celebrating the holidays, while parents were out making one last mad dash for Christmas presents. The year was 1978 and everyone in the small town seemed to be in the merry Christmas spirit except for one man named John Wayne Gacy. John Wayne Gacy not only embodied the likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, but was a mass serial killer, convicted of killing thirty-three people between 1972 and 1978. His Christmas celebration was horrible compared to all the nuclear families in the city . John was thought to be an ordinary city man who owned a small construction company. But, contrary to popular belief, he was a cold-hearted killer. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. "Gacy and his brothers grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father." As a boy, Gacy was often beaten mercilessly for no apparent reason and many times, rendered unconscious by barbaric assaults. He often made great strides to make his father proud, but rarely received the praise or acceptance he wanted and certainly needed. When Gacy was only four years old, his father beat him unconscious with a leather belt for accidentally dismantling parts of a car engine that had been put together by his father. His mother often tried to protect him from his father, but rarely prevailed. Whenever his mother intervened, he was seen as a "Sissy". Gacy became the direct product of his terrifying and abusive childhood and was a truly broken individual. His strange addictions stemmed from the pain and horror he endured as a child. When Gacy was only seven years old, he was caught with another boy while sexually groping a young girl. When his father was informed, he brutally whipped Gacy with a leather razor strap. At the age of nine, John was molested by a family friend. This "Friend" was a business owner who often took Gacy to places of work and forced him to perform sexual acts. Years passed and he never dared to speak for fear of what his father might do to him. Over the next two years, Gacy was caught on numerous occasions wearing women's underwear, which was often his mother's. Whenever he was caught, his mother forced him to wear underwear to school. Hoping to embarrass him, she only fueled the fire of his deranged fetishes. It was this violent childhood upbringing that became a breeding ground for the deranged serial killer that Gacy would become. During Gacy's senior year, he attended four high schools. To no avail, Gacy never quite fit in or ended up graduating. In a great leap of faith, he decided to leave Chicago and go to Las Vegas to find the acceptance he craved. In Las Vegas, Gacy had a part-time job as a custodian at Palm Mortuary. A few months into his new job, he was caught fondling corpses and his job was terminated. Due to the lack of sustainability, Gacy was forced to move back to his hometown in Illinois to live with his parents. It was during this time that he enrolled in a business college with a new passion for the art of salesmanship. A few years later he owned three restaurants, married into a very wealthy family, and raised a family of his own. It wasn't long before Gacy moved his new family to.