Chicago Tribune

In ‘Killing Time,’ an attorney confronts her time with John Wayne Gacy

Karen Conti attorney and author of the book “Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy,” in Chicago, May 23, 2024.

She was a kid, really, the 28-year-old attorney Karen Conti when she came face-to-face with the serial killer John Wayne Gacy and this is what she saw: “His face was ashen, splotchy and bloated. A dimpled chin and several beneath it were wedged against his blue prison-issue shirt. … There was nothing attractive about Gacy and his light blue eyes were somehow flat and lacking in depth or warmth.”

That is how Conti recalls her first encounter with Gacy. It was October 1993 and he was locked on death row in the Menard from sales of paintings he had created while in jail.

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