The Man Who Killed Boys Read Online Free Page B

Shoe Company as a management trainee for sixty-five dollars per week. He did so well that by 1964, just before his twenty-second birthday, he was transferred to Springfield, Illinois, to manage the company's retail outlet at Roberts Brothers, a leading men's clothing store.
    The March 8, 1964 State Journal Register in Springfield reported that Gacy was with Nunn-Bush several years in the Chicago area, where he attended school. The new manager of the shoe store held a degree in accounting and business management, the article said, and "... up and until his transfer (he was) very active in youth work and young adult clubs, of which he is a member of the board for the Catholic Inter-Club Council and membership chairman for the Chi Rho Club."
    The article added that Gacy was an officer of the Holy Name Society, served for three years as commanding captain for the Chicago Civil Defense, and was a member of the federal Civil Defense for Illinois. The introductory spiel concluded by saying that Gacy was living in Springfield's Sherwood subdivision with an uncle and an aunt.
    Springfield was good to the young shoe salesman. He worked there only a few months before he had met, courted, charmed and—in September 1964—married a pretty co-worker, Marlynn Myers, in a Catholic Church ceremony. Short, stocky, and pudgy-faced, Gacy was nothing special to look at. He made up for what he lacked in good looks with personality and generosity. The young woman whom he married was an only child and was impressed by the big spender from the city who talked of being so amazingly well traveled and accomplished, despite his tender years.
    Marlynn felt a personal pride when she watched him charm customers. He sold shoes as spiritedly as he sold himself. It was important to him and he applied himself to the task with the same charm, persistence, and roguish bluster that he had brought to his romance.
    Fortune smiled on the young couple when Marlynn's parents purchased a string of Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises in Waterloo, Iowa, and moved there. The family home was left for the newly weds.
    Springfield offered more than a bride to the dynamic young Chicago native. It was in Springfield that he discovered the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and joined the local group of energetic young business and professional men working to make their community a better place to live in by carrying out a never-ending series of activities.
    As devoted to improving their communities as Jaycees may be, they also believe in publicizing their accomplishments. Jaycees are not known for their modesty, and for every public-spirited project they are involved in, it seems that there is also a dinner or awards banquet where members are publicly and profusely thanked, recognized, and rewarded for their various achievements.
    The Jaycees was the kind of organization that Gacy could relate to. By dedicating himself to club activities, he found that he could win recognition and acclaim as one of the up-and-coming bright young men in the state capital and manufacturing center of ninety-six thousand. Instead of being a faceless shoe salesman in Chicago, through commitment and strict attention to club politics he could acquire the recognition as a Jaycee that was so important to him. He worked hard, and the recognition came to him. Only weeks after his arrival in Springfield, he was chosen as the Jaycee Key Man for April for helping plan the annual boss's night banquet and in recognition of his work on a project promoting purchase of U.S. savings bonds.
    In 1965, only a year after arriving in Springfield, he was elected first vice-president and the chapter's outstanding man of the year. Jim Selinger, chapter president in 1965, considered Gacy to be a devoted Roman Catholic who took his marriage vows seriously, and the most energetic, ambitious, and outgoing of the three vice-presidents then serving.
    Sometimes it appeared that the ambitious shoe salesman worked almost too hard. Friends