actor jack merrill Reveals details of horrifying encounter with serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
Merrill, 65, whose screen credits include law and order, Hannah Montana, Grey’s Anatomy and sex and the cityHe said he was kidnapped and raped by a notorious criminal in 1978, when he was 19 years old.
writing people In the Wednesday, October 23 issue of the magazine, Merrill explained that she was living alone in Chicago at the time and was walking home at night when she encountered Gacy, who was executed by lethal injection in 1994.
“A guy stopped his car and said, ‘Do you want a ride?’” he recalled.
Merrill continued: “He pulled up near the Kennedy Expressway on-ramp and asked me if I had ever tried ‘poppers’ (amyl nitrite). He took out this brown bottle, squirted some liquid on a rag, and then stuck it in my face. I passed out and woke up to find myself handcuffed. “I saw the exit onto Cumberland on the highway near the airport, and the next thing I knew, we were outside his house.”
Merrill, who described himself as “an insignificant 19-year-old boy,” said he was taken to Gacy’s home, where he realized he was in danger. “I knew I couldn’t make him mad,” he wrote.
“The house was dark. I felt it was a trap,” the actor continued.
Merrill wrote: “He put a homemade device around my neck. It had ropes and pulleys that went around my back and passed through my handcuffed hands, making me suffocate as I struggled. I did at one point and started losing air. He stuck the gun in my mouth. And then he raped me in the bedroom.”
“I knew I didn’t have much of a chance if I fought him. “I never got scared or screamed,” he added.
Soon after, Merrill said she could tell Gacy was “tired” when he “suddenly said, ‘I’ll take you home.'” Gacy then dropped Merrill near where he had found her around 5 a.m.
“He gave me his phone number and said, ‘Maybe we can meet again someday.’ “When I got home, I flushed the number down the toilet and took a shower.”
Merrill said he did not call police at the time and did not realize the man he had met was a serial killer.
Months later, the actor said he knew it was he who had assaulted him when he saw the headline “Body found in suburbia.”
After her terrible ordeal, Merrill wrote that she learned to “forgive” Gacy and found solace in acting.
“Acting was therapeutic for me. You have to express yourself, and with that comes honesty. Recognition and acceptance,” she explained, adding that she found peace through her long-term relationship with her husband.
Merrill has now written a one-man show based on his experiences. saveCurrently playing at the Electric Lodge in Los Angeles. “I am proud of the trip. “I was able to learn from the bad and use it for good,” he wrote.
Gacy was finally arrested after kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and murdering at least 33 young men between 1972 and 1978. He was convicted of 33 murders in 1980 and sentenced to death. His execution took place 14 years later, in 1994.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). https://www.rainn.org/