The Trifecta of Evil: Chilling cosmic link between Jeffery Dahmer’s baptism and John Wayne Gacy’s execution
Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers' discretion advised
In an eerie similarity, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was baptized in prison the day John Wayne Gacy was executed. On May 10, 1994, Gacy was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center, the same day that Dahmer was baptized as he sought redemption for the heinous crimes. The two serial killers slaughtered 50 young men and boys between them.
Making the similarities between the two serial killers even more unnerving, a solar eclipse marked the day Gacy died and Dahmer was baptized. Before he died, Gacy told those who were gathered to see his execution to "kiss my a**".
READ MORE
Why wasn't Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed and dismembered at least 17 males, given the death penalty?
Gacy, born on March 17, 1942, began committing gruesome crimes with a string of sexual assaults. He terrorized the Chicago area for as many as six years until 1978. Gacy worked as a clown prior to his crimes, which is how he earned his "killer clown" nickname. He stabbed his first victim, 16-year-old Timothy McCoy, to death after picking him up from a bus terminal.
Gacy would lure his victims into his house in Chicago where he would pretend to perform a magic trick on them, sometimes in his clown persona. He would convince them to put on handcuffs, and then go on to rape and torture them before killing them. He buried many of his victims under his house. Until the time he was finally captured, he evaded suspicion by claiming the foul smell of bodies actually came from a build-up of dampness.
In another strange coincidence, Dahmer killed his first victim, Steven Hicks, in 1978, which is the same year Gacy was arrested. Dahmer, nicknamed the 'The Milwaukee Cannibal', murdered and dismembered at least 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. When he was arrested, police arrived at his home to discover seven skulls, two hearts, severed hands, skeletons, and dismembered torsos, as well as polaroid photos of his victims, saws, knives, a drill, and acid. He was eventually sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in prison in 1992.
Other prisoners said that while in jail, Dahmer would shape his food into body parts and spread ketchup on them to make it look like blood. He was killed by fellow Columbia Correctional Institution inmate Christopher Scarver on November 28, 1994.
Dahmer apparently found God before he was killed in prison after he was sent religious material by Curt Booth, a member of the Crescent Church of Christ in Oklahoma. Booth said he had watched Dahmer say in an interview that he wished he could “find a little peace”, according to the Oklahoman. Dahmer thanked Booth for the courses but also said he believed he might not find a pastor to carry out the baptism.
Booth subsequently contacted Roy Ratcliff, evangelist at the Madison Church of Christ in Wisconsin, who set up weekly Bible lessons with Dahmer. Ratcliff baptized him on May 10, 1994, pushing him underwater until he was fully immersed. "I tried several others (preachers), but they were kind of scared to go in," Booth later said. Months later, in November, inmate Christopher Scarver beat Dahmer to death.