Maeve Bidonde, Staff Writer
Law & Order SVU actor Jack Merrill came forward recently about his experience being drugged and raped at the hands of notorious murder and rapist John Wayne Gacy. Merrill has a one man show called The Save where he tells this story for the very first time.
In an article by People Magazine Merrill detailed the fateful day saying “‘It was just another night,’says Merrill on that warm fall evening in 1978 when he left the YMCA on Chicago’s North Side. ‘I was on my way home from a swim. I was 19 years old and living on my own and I was walking past this park, where all these cars pulled around.’” John Wayne Gacy was driving one of those cars. Gacy raced to his home on the Outskirts of Chicago, shoving a rag covered with chloroform over the face of Merrill.
Merrill recounts waking up in handcuffs. He goes on to say “‘I made a pact with myself at the time that he controlled me for one night but he would not control my life,’ says the actor, 65. ‘It happened 45 years ago, and I think it’s time to tell it.’” He told his story exclusively to People and in his show.
He recalled Gacy offering him pot and beer and asking Merrill if he trusted him. Merrill’s answer was that he did. That was the right answer for only a moment. Gacy removed the handcuffs but not long after he put them back on and dragged Merrill down the hall to his room. Merrill goes on to say that Gacy put a homemade device around his neck that would choke him if he struggled. After that Gacy put a gun in his mouth and raped him in the bedroom. He also said to People Magazine “He also remembers that at one point, Gacy told him, ‘You’re not like those other kids.’Says Merrill, ‘I sensed that it was a good thing he thought I was different. But I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t know then that he was a serial killer.’”
The next morning Gacy dropped Merrill off at his apartment as the sun rose. However Merrill wouldn’t know who Gacy was until reading a newspaper headline in December 1978. In his interview with People Magazine he says “‘It was about three months later, and that meant I was one of the last ones,’” Gacy ended up being charged with murdering 33 young men. 26 of those young men and their remains were found buried on his property. Gacy was put to death May 19 1994 via lethal injection.
Merrill in telling his story in his own words in the exclusive with People Magazine tells how he repaired his relationship with his parents, went to NYU at 21, and has a husband with whom he has a rescue dog named Fred and a hairless cat named Felix. Merrill and his husband have been married for 23 years.
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