A veteran actor who appeared in “Law & Order” and “Grey’s Anatomy” revealed Wednesday that he was kidnapped, raped and held at gunpoint by notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy more than 45 years ago.
Jack Merrill described himself as a “trashy 19-year-old” in 1978 when the “killer clown” pulled over his car into the teenager as he was returning home from a swim at the YMCA in Chicago.
“Do you want to go for a ride?” Merrill remembers being asked in a People magazine article.
Actor Jack Merrill at a screening of “Limerence” at AllBright West Hollywood on January 6, 2020. Getty Images
Merrill, who had lived alone in a studio flat since he was 17, jumped into the stranger’s car before being told: “You’re smart. You’re not like those other kids.”
Merrill thought the ride would be around the block, but Gacy quickly drove to a different neighborhood, where he was told to lock the door, before stopping near the Kennedy Expressway ramp, northwest of downtown Chicago.
Gacy, 36, asked Merrill if he had ever done “poppers,” an alkyl nitrite, when he pulled out a brown bottle, squirted the liquid onto a cloth and shoved it into the teen’s face.
Merrill, who had a boyfriend at the time, said he blacked out, only to wake up to find himself handcuffed outside Gacy’s Northwood Park Township home, 4 miles east of Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
“He told me to be quiet. A light from the back of the house hit him in the eyes and suddenly I realized how dangerous he was,” Merrill wrote. “I knew I couldn’t make him angry. I just had to defuse the situation and act like everything was fine.
John Wayne Gacy poses for a photo in 1978. Des Plaines Police Dept/SWNS
Merrill said this calming method was the same one he and his sisters used to ward off their parents’ wrath.
“That’s how I survived as a kid—we learned to lay low while my father was angry,” Merrill recalls.
Merrill said his mother had a narcissistic personality, “and nothing was beyond the influence of life on her.”
His father was Jerome Holtzman, the legendary MLB historian and National Baseball Hall of Famer, who at the time was a baseball writer for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Gacy was known as the “Killer Clown” for his public performances as a clown before his arrest. Martin Zielinski
Once inside the dark house, he obliged when asked if he trusted Gacy, Merrill said, who then removed the teen’s handcuffs before the two had beer and strong pot.
Gacy re-cuffed his victim and dragged him down the hall before placing the homemade object around Merrill’s neck.
The device was equipped with ropes and pulleys and ran around his back and through the handcuffs, so if Merrill struggled, he would suffocate.
Gacy then put a gun into Merrill’s mouth before proceeding to rape his victim.
“I knew if I fought him, I wouldn’t have much of a chance. I never panicked or screamed,” Merrill said.
Merrill admitted that he felt sorry for his attacker “in a way.” “It’s like he didn’t necessarily want to do what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop.”
When Gacy appeared to be tired, the killer surprised the teen.
Suddenly he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Merrill was dropped off around 5 a.m., near where he was picked up.
“Maybe we’ll get together again sometime,” Gacy allegedly said as he handed over a piece of paper with his phone number on it.
Gacy was convicted of raping, torturing and murdering at least 33 men between the ages of 14 and 21.
Merrill quickly flushed the paper down the toilet when he got home. He chose to shower, went to dinner for eggs and a milkshake, and did not report it to the police.
“I didn’t call the police. I didn’t know he was a murderer at the time,” he said. “I made a pact with myself that I would get through this. I wasn’t going to leave my happiness in that house.”
When news broke that Gacy had been arrested and bodies had been found inside his home, Merrill called the Chicago Sun-Times.
“This man raped me.” The man who answered said, “What is your name that you said?”
Merrill did not leave his name because his father still works there.
“I thought if the police needed my help, I would come forward,” the actor said.
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Gacy was convicted of raping, torturing and murdering at least 33 men between the ages of 14 and 21.
Twenty-six bodies were recovered from the crawl space under Gacy’s house in December 1978.
Five of the victims remain unidentified, after officials identified Frances Wayne Alexander, of North Carolina, through dental records in October 2021.
Gacy was arrested in December 1978, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Authorities exhume a casket containing the remains of unidentified Gacy victims in Cook County. AP
Gacy was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Facility on May 10, 1994.
Merrill moved to New York, where he took up acting, which became therapeutic for him.
“You’re forced to express yourself, and there’s a certain honesty that comes with that. Acknowledgment and acceptance,” he added.
Merrill described himself as lucky, as he survived the shock of death, ending up with a 23-year-old husband and their two pets.
“There are a lot of people who have bad things happen to them. A lot of people who have been raped don’t talk about it. I understand that.”
The actor, who stars in his one-man show “The Save” in Los Angeles, rarely reveals this story.
“So far I’ve only told close friends. But with my new show, I walk through it every night. I’m proud of the journey.”
