When a loved one is cruelly taken away by a sadistic killer, the pain never really goes away. Rob Piest, 15, was John Wayne Gacy’s 33rd – and final victim – but if it wasn’t for his friend Kim more innocent victims would have lost their lives
It was a crisp, cold December evening back in 1978 when 17-year-old Kim turned up for her shift at her local chemist’s in suburban Illinois, Chicago.
Shivering because she’d forgotten her jacket and the temperature was hovering around zero degrees Celsius, she smiled gratefully when her loyal and kind friend Rob leaned over to lend her his warm, blue parka.
This kind, selfless gesture will forever be etched in Kim’s memory, for it was the last time she ever saw her friend alive.
Now, some 47 years later and 63-year-old Kim Byers-Lund’s oldest daughter, Courtney (37), is sharing her mum’s brave story of resilience. “My mum lost her friend Rob Piest on the night of December 11, 1978, and the pain and grief doesn’t really ever go away,” she reveals in an exclusive chat with the Mirror from her Los Angeles home. “She was involved in the capture of one of the most famous serial killers, John Wayne Gacy, and it’s part of our family history. I was shocked when I first discovered this and wanted to tell my mum’s side because through her, I have seen the ripple effects of his crimes.”
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One of the world’s most notorious serial killers – John Wayne Gacy – brutally tortured, raped and murdered 33 young men and boys in the 1970s. He hid 29 brittle, blackened bodies in the space between the floors of his house during his killing spree, which spanned from 1972 to 1978 – the remains of his other four victims were later discovered in the murky waters of the nearby Les Plaines river.
But if it hadn’t been for Kim popping her photo developing receipt in Rob’s jacket, John Wayne Gacy’s killing spree would never have been stopped. She has no idea why she saved the receipt and put it in Rob’s jacket pocket – perhaps it was her subconscious telling her to leave a clue? “Her saving the receipt helped lead authorities to Gacy because they found the receipt in his house, and it was a leading piece of evidence that led to his arrest,” Courtney says.
Police also found a class ring belonging to John Szyc, who vanished in January 1977, aged 19, and handcuffs and shackles in Gacy’s attic. As Kim’s eldest daughter, Courtney has always enjoyed a close relationship with her mum and recalls how she first started to learn of her mother’s brush with a serial killer when she was at elementary school. And while losing a friend is still raw and painful for her mum, Courtney says she’s in awe of her mum’s incredible bravery, which led to Gacy’s capture. “As a young 17-year-old, she had the belief that even though this was a horrible thing, she was going to do her part to make sure Gacy could never hurt anyone again.
“My mum felt overwhelmed – she was a young girl looking forward to going to college, and her life kind of ended in many ways when she became an eyewitness. She was a freshman at college, and she had to fly back in 1980 for the trial. It was a lot to deal with, but she handled it with a lot of grace, and I’ve always been proud of how she coped with everything.”
Despite Kim’s bravery, it took a while for the police to listen to her. “Authorities tried to shut her down,” Courtney says. “She was 17 and treated like she didn’t know what she was talking about – so I’m helping her reclaim her voice.” The random act of putting the receipt in Rob’s jacket, which was later found at Gacy’s house, meant her mum was the key witness in a serial killer trial that gripped the world. And when Rob’s body was found floating along the Des Plaines River months later in April 1979, she testified that it was her friend and that Gacy was the last one seen with him.
In 2017, almost four decades after Rob was murdered, Kim visited Gacy’s house with her daughter, where many of the victims had unwittingly been lured to their deaths. “My mum said it felt creepy being outside the house and that she had goosebumps,” Courtney recalls. “I remember feeling sad, scared. But it was important to imagine some of the pain those innocent boys – and their distraught families – were put through.”
The Monday evening he was murdered – December 11, 1978 – Rob Piest, 15, had left the pharmacy where he worked with Kim to speak to Gacy about a potential job. It was the last time he was seen alive and when officers later visited Gacy’s home a police officer noticed a smell of rotting corpses after flushing Gacy’s toilet. Gacy later confessed he had taken his victims by force, under the pretence he was a policeman, or lured them to his home with the promise of a job or an offer of money for sex.
He was given the nickname of the ‘Killer Clown’ because he would wear clown makeup and clothing to perform at fundraisers as ‘Pogo’ or ‘Patches the Clown’. And he used his clown act to trick his victims into being handcuffed, with Gacy telling them he was going to show them a magic trick. Once handcuffed, the victims would soon realise they were real and Gacy would overwhelm them, or use chloroform, before stripping and gagging them.
The young men were then tortured and raped, and either garrotted or asphyxiated by their gags. Gacy then buried the victims in the crawl space of his house, using lime to speed up decomposition. So horrific were the murders that prosecutor Terry Sullivan stopped taking on murder cases after the John Wayne Gacy case, telling Courtney he couldn’t handle it anymore. “I feel devastated for the families who lost boys and young men,” Courtney adds. “It angers me, it frustrates me – it’s painful to think about.”
Now, Courtney has written a book telling the story of the victims’ families and the survivors, without glorifying Gacy’s sadistic crimes. “The book puts the victims and survivors first – what matters is not John Wayne Gacy but the victims and the people who loved the victims. It tells the story of how a young woman helped stop a serial killer and how it forever altered her family and the community. The story of his final victim and what happened after the killer was caught. We should be telling their stories – murdering people doesn’t make Gacy interesting.”
Gacy was executed on May 10, 1994, at Stateville Correctional Centre in Crest Hill, Illinois, by lethal injection for the murders committed between 1972 and 1978. His last words before he was executed showed the cold-blooded killer had no remorse, as he left the world simply saying: “Kiss my a**.” But if Courtney could have one wish, it would be that the world remembers the victims, not the murderer. She feels frustrated that horrific acts of notorious killers are often glorified and says it’s important that the victims’ mothers have a voice. Meanwhile, her own mum, Kim, says she still thinks about Rob’s mum and the pain she is going through.
“A mother’s love is immeasurable,” she says. “I think a lot about Elizabeth Piest. She did everything she could as a mother, and Rob was a great kid. This family was so full of love. You never want anyone you love to feel the same pain or stress or violence.” And she says the threat of someone taking your child unpredictably with no warning became more real to her when she became a mother. “I had to have bedrooms on the second floor,” she told Courtney in an interview previously published in Harper’s Bazaar. “Property that was thoroughly locked. A little borderline paranoia.”
“For me, my friend lost his life on that property. And it’s still so raw 40 years later. How could some man, for whatever reason, become a monster and steal my friend’s life in a heinous, horrendous way? Our culture needs a shift. We need to shift our attention and love to the boys who gave their lives, and not the man who murdered. For so long, Gacy has held celebrity-like status. Our culture worships the criminal, not the victims. These boys gave their lives. We should pay respect to the victims.”
Postmortem by Courtney Lund O’Neill (Mirror Books, £9.99) is on sale May 22nd but you can pre-order on Amazon now.
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