Police detective Joe Korenczak receives a missing person report on teenage boy Chris Gant who was last seen in the company of local businessman John Wayne Gacy . Joe visits the home of Gacy only to find the truculent home owner in no mood to talk since Gacy has just received news of a family tragedy . As Joe digs deeper he finds several more teenage boys have disappeared all of them associated with Gacy who has a previous for sodomy
I remember seeing this mini-series many years ago and being hypnotized by Brian Dennehey's performance of John Wayne Gacy . I'd never heard of Gacy before TO CATCH A KILLER but thanks to to this he stuck out in my mind , helped no doubt that the mass murderer shares most of his name with a famous cowboy actor . Dennehey is terrifying in the role but with hindsight he's a little to good . His portrayal as Gacy is a little bit too abrasive , supercilious and intimidating . He effectively has " Evil Serial killer " written on his forehead and instead of the banality of evil we have the arrogance of evil . You'll be puzzled as to why the police didn't catch him sooner
The unfortunate thing is that the police should have caught him sooner . . Before TO CATCH A KILLER takes up the story police in Illinois had received complaints about Gacy one of which related to the disappearance of 17 year old John Butokovich whose parents begged police to investigate him but the police did nothing . Gacy you see was a fine upstanding pillar of the community active in committees and local politics rubbing shoulders with the great and good . You can just imagine the parents of the disappeared wailing that Gacy knows more than he's letting on and the police dismissing them that anyone having their photo taken with the first lady is incapable of being a murderer
This is at odds with the dramatized events of TO CATCH A KILLER . From the outset we know Gacy is guilty as does police detective Korenczak . It's almost as though this miniseries has been written for the benefit of the Illinois police making them less culpable of gullibility at the hands of Gacy but this ends up becoming totally ironic as Dennehey growls and sneers and effectively says " Come and get me coppers " from the very outset of the mini-series . The police here are so short of leads they have to contact a psychic for leads but the truth is complaints had been made about Gacy for several years before and no one in authority joined up the dots
I remember seeing this mini-series many years ago and being hypnotized by Brian Dennehey's performance of John Wayne Gacy . I'd never heard of Gacy before TO CATCH A KILLER but thanks to to this he stuck out in my mind , helped no doubt that the mass murderer shares most of his name with a famous cowboy actor . Dennehey is terrifying in the role but with hindsight he's a little to good . His portrayal as Gacy is a little bit too abrasive , supercilious and intimidating . He effectively has " Evil Serial killer " written on his forehead and instead of the banality of evil we have the arrogance of evil . You'll be puzzled as to why the police didn't catch him sooner
The unfortunate thing is that the police should have caught him sooner . . Before TO CATCH A KILLER takes up the story police in Illinois had received complaints about Gacy one of which related to the disappearance of 17 year old John Butokovich whose parents begged police to investigate him but the police did nothing . Gacy you see was a fine upstanding pillar of the community active in committees and local politics rubbing shoulders with the great and good . You can just imagine the parents of the disappeared wailing that Gacy knows more than he's letting on and the police dismissing them that anyone having their photo taken with the first lady is incapable of being a murderer
This is at odds with the dramatized events of TO CATCH A KILLER . From the outset we know Gacy is guilty as does police detective Korenczak . It's almost as though this miniseries has been written for the benefit of the Illinois police making them less culpable of gullibility at the hands of Gacy but this ends up becoming totally ironic as Dennehey growls and sneers and effectively says " Come and get me coppers " from the very outset of the mini-series . The police here are so short of leads they have to contact a psychic for leads but the truth is complaints had been made about Gacy for several years before and no one in authority joined up the dots