Who were John Wayne Gacy's victims? How did he get caught?

Earlier this week, Netflix released Joe Berlinger’s follow-up to Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, this time focused on serial killer John Wayne Gacy. The John Wayne Gacy Tapes is a three-episode docuseries featuring never-before-heard audio and never-before-seen archival footage.

The docuseries also features one of Gacy’s survivors, Steve Nemmers, who gets to talk about his experience and how he outsmarted Gacy as a teenager. If you’re curious for more details about the killer, his victims or clarification on information from the docuseries, you can find some additional insight into the case below.

Gacy reportedly killed at least 33 young boys and men. Twenty-six of his victims were found buried in the crawlspace beneath his house with several other victims buried elsewhere on his property. A few others were discovered near the Des Plaines River.

Gacy typically killed his victims by asphyxiation or strangulation. He often lured them into his home and would handcuff them under the pretext of performing a magic trick.

It wasn’t until Robert Piest went missing that authorities started investigating Gacy. Someone recognized Gacy as one of the last people to speak with Gacy. Things essentially snowballed from there, as the police later found out about his previous arrest for sodomy in Iowa.

Believing that Gacy could be holding Piest hostage in his home, the police got a search warrant and later began surveilling his house. The second search warrant revealed human remains in the crawlspace and from there the police got a confession from Gacy and that later led to a more extensive search for bodies on his property.

Here is the complete list of all 28 identified victims:

Five victims remain unidentified with efforts renewed to find out who they are. Information regarding the five unidentified bodies is available at the Cook County Sheriff website.