Law & Order actor Jack Merrill talks about his horrific encounter with notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
The 65-year-old wrote about being kidnapped and raped by the Killer Clown — who raped and murdered at least 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area from 1972 through 1978 — and how the horrifying incident continues to shape his life in PEOPLE in an article published Thursday.
In the article, Merrill explained that growing up in a volatile family environment led him to move from his home in Evanston, Illinois, to Chicago when he was 17 years old. He revealed that one night, when he was 19, he was returning home after swimming at the local YMCA when a man stopped and asked him if he wanted a ride.
“I thought I was going to drive around the block a few times, but it started driving fast and it turned into a really bad neighborhood,” he recalls. “He said: Close your door.” “It is dangerous.”
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Jack Merrill; John Wayne Gacy.
Gabriella Mag/Patrick McMullan via Getty; Pittman Archive/Getty
The man later stopped and asked Merrill, who is gay, if he had taken “poppers” — a drug that, when inhaled, causes short-term euphoria and dizziness. “He took out this brown bottle, squirted some liquid on a cloth and put it in my face,” he wrote. “I lost consciousness, and when I woke up I was handcuffed.”
As the man took Merrill home, he realized how increasingly dangerous the situation was. “I was 19 years old. I knew I couldn’t make him angry. I just had to defuse the situation and act like everything was fine,” he noted. “That’s how I survived as a kid — we learned to lay low while “My father got angry.”
The pair drank beer and smoked pot together before the man placed a “homemade contraption” around Merrill’s neck. “It had ropes and pulleys, and it went around my back and through my handcuffed hands in a way that I would have suffocated if I resisted. I did at some point and I started to lose air. “He put a gun in my mouth. Then he raped me in the bedroom. I knew that if I fought him, I wouldn’t have much of a chance. I never panicked or screamed.
Merrill also wrote that he “felt sorry” for the man in a strange way, noting that he seemed to “not necessarily want to do what he was doing, but he just couldn’t stop.” He continued: “We were there for hours. Finally, I could tell he was tired. Suddenly he said: “I’ll take you home.”
The man drove Merrill to his original location around 5 a.m. the next morning and offered him his phone number so they could “get together again sometime.” He flushed the number down the toilet after returning home, but chose not to call police because he was unaware of his attacker’s murderous past at the time.
Jack Merrill.
Gabriella Mag/Patrick McMullan via Getty
It wasn’t until he saw a Chicago Sun-Times headline about Gacy’s crimes that Merrill realized it was him who had assaulted him. Gacy, who buried the bodies of his victims in the crawl space beneath his house, was convicted in 1980 of murdering his known victims, many of whom are still being identified to this day. He was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center in 1994.
Merrill called the newspaper to report the assault, but hung up before sharing any confidential details because his father worked at the newspaper. “I thought if the police needed my help, I would come forward. They found all these bodies under that house, and years later he was convicted.” “But as I said, if they needed me, I would have come forward.”
In the aftermath of the encounter, Meryl “made a pact with myself that I would get through this” and not “leave my happiness in that house.” He moved to New York City where he began studying drama at New York University. “Acting was therapeutic for me,” he wrote. “You’re forced to express yourself, and there’s a certain honesty that comes with that. Acknowledgment and acceptance.”
Merrill — whose television credits include roles on Sex & the City, Joan of Arcadia and Grey’s Anatomy — noted that he had never undergone therapy for the assault, but an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show featured a woman who had been raped. How she learned to forgive her attacker in order to move forward was helpful in the healing process.
Although he has since forgiven Gacy and his parents, the assault is something he still lives with to this day. “Don’t get me wrong — I’m still going through it. Our culture is obsessed with John Wayne Gacy,” he wrote, referring to a haunted harried he once visited only to discover that it had a segment dedicated to Gacy that featured gun-swinging killer clowns.
Through this experience, Merrill, who is now in a loving relationship with his wife, wrote that he came to understand that “no one’s shock is greater than no one’s shock.” He continued: “There are a lot of people who have had bad things happen to them. Many people who have been raped don’t talk about it. I understand that. So far I’ve only told close friends. But as I present my new show I walk through it every night, and I’m proud of the journey I’ve been on.” I was able to learn from the bad and use it for good.
If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, text “TRUST” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 to connect with a Certified Crisis Counselor.
