Living with Evil: The Women Who Married John Wayne Gacy

For years, John Wayne Gacy projected the image of an average suburban husband. A successful contractor and community volunteer, he managed to disguise the fact that he was, in fact, one of America’s most prolific serial killers. Between 1972 and 1978, Gacy murdered at least 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area, burying most of his victims in the crawl space beneath his home. Convicted in 1980, he was executed by lethal injection in 1994.

Before the world knew him as a killer, Gacy was simply a husband, twice over, living in quiet suburbia. But each marriage told the same story, that of a charming provider whose warmth masked a growing darkness.

In September 1964, the 22-year-old Gacy married Marlynn Myers, a coworker he met while managing a Springfield, Ill., shoe store. Her father owned three Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises in Waterloo, Iowa. Soon after their wedding, the couple moved to Waterloo, where Gacy managed his father-in-law’s restaurants and quickly became a respected local businessman.

The couple had two children, Michael and Christine, and were described by friends and neighbors as outgoing and seemingly happy. Gacy joined the local Jaycees, a civic organization where he earned praise for his enthusiasm and community involvement. He and Myers entertained other Jaycees at their home, hosted parties and appeared to embody small-town success. 

But Gacy’s darker impulses were growing. He and his social group reportedly engaged in drugs, wife swapping and pornography.  By 1968, rumors circulated about his inappropriate behavior toward teenage boys who worked for him. That March, he was charged with sexually assaulting the teenaged son of a fellow Jaycee. Gacy initially denied the accusation, but in 1968, he pleaded guilty to committing sodomy and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In later interviews, Gacy spoke sparingly about Myers, presenting himself as the victim of “false accusations” and claiming his conviction had been politically motivated. Myers divorced him shortly thereafter, filing for divorce while he was incarcerated. She was granted full custody of their children, and Gacy would never see her or their children again. Despite the scandal surrounding the end of the marriage, Myers would later profess to be shocked when Gacy was arrested for multiple murders in 1978.

Gacy served only 18 months of his 10-year sentence before being paroled in 1970 for good behavior. He returned to Illinois, where his mother helped him buy a small ranch house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue in the Norwood Park suburb of Chicago.

Gacy worked to rebuild his image. He started a successful construction business, PDM Contractors, and resumed civic activities, volunteering with the Democratic Party, dressing as “Pogo the Clown” for local charity events and portraying himself as a model neighbor. It was during this period of self-reinvention that he married his second wife, Carole Hoff.

Hoff, a divorced mother of two, was an old friend of Gacy’s sister, and the pair reconnected when he returned to Illinois. She later recalled that he seemed kind and willing to provide stability for her and her daughters. She would also say that before their July 1972 marriage, Gacy admitted his bisexuality, but she thought he wasn’t being serious. What Gacy kept hidden was the fact that he already murdered his first victim, Timothy McCoy.

Gacy initially doted on Hoff’s daughters and seemed to be a dependable and hardworking husband. But as with his first marriage, the cracks began to show. Gacy became increasingly secretive and unpredictable with frequent unexplained absences. The marriage also grew strained by Gacy’s erratic sexual behavior and his increasing control over their household. 

By 1975, the relationship had deteriorated further. Gacy began bringing young men from his contracting business into the house, claiming they were employees or temporary helpers. Carole grew suspicious, particularly after noticing a pervasive foul odor emanating from the basement area. Gacy blamed it on trapped water, and he forbade his wife and her children from entering certain areas of the house, including the garage.

In 1976, Hoff filed for divorce. Two years later, police would uncover the full truth of the horror that had occurred in that home. She cooperated fully with the police. She described the strange odors, Gacy’s volatile behavior and his increasingly obsessive need for secrecy. 

Throughout his arrest, trial and during decades of imprisonment, Gacy offered conflicting statements about his sexuality, often frustrating those who tried to understand the motives behind his vicious acts. Hoff said he’d admitted his sexuality to her, and the 2021 Peacock docuseries John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise featured an interview with Gacy from 1992 in which he also described himself as bisexual. But he insisted that his relationships and encounters with men were about power, not desire.

Psychologists who evaluated him after his arrest noted that Gacy appeared deeply conflicted and repressed, viewing his homosexual impulses as shameful and violent. His victims, mostly young men, were people he perceived as vulnerable or subordinate, which allowed him to dominate and control them. Experts have long debated whether Gacy’s crimes were motivated by sexual desire, sadism or a desire for power, but his own shifting explanations offered little clarity.

Myers, who had remarried, refused to comment publicly on her ex-husband’s crimes. Hoff spoke occasionally with journalists in later years, expressing guilt that she had missed signs of what was happening but emphasizing that Gacy had hidden his true nature from everyone. 

When Gacy was finally executed on May 10, 1994, neither woman attended. By then, their former husband had become one of the most infamous killers in American history and a chilling reminder of how ordinary evil can look from the outside.