Editing John Wayne Gacy (section)

====Arrest====
After being informed that the police had found human remains in his crawl space and that he would now face murder charges, Gacy told officers he wanted to "clear the air".{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|pp=166–179}} In the early morning hours of December 22, and in the presence of his lawyers, Gacy provided a formal statement in which he confessed to murdering approximately thirty young males—all of whom he claimed had entered his house willingly.{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|pp=166–179}} Some victims were referred to by name, but Gacy claimed not to know or remember most of the names.{{sfn|Cahill|1986|pp=281–284}} He claimed all were teenage male runaways or male prostitutes, the majority of whom he had buried in his crawl space.{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|pp=166–179}} Gacy claimed to have dug only five of the graves in this location and had his employees (including Godzik) dig the remaining trenches so that he would "have graves available".{{sfn|Amirante|2011|pp=140–142}} When shown a driver's license issued to a Robert Hasten which had been found on his property, Gacy claimed not to know this individual but admitted that this license had been in the possession of one of his victims.{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|pp=360–374}} He also confessed to having planned to further conceal the bodies beneath his property by covering the entire crawl space with concrete in January 1979.{{sfn|Cahill|1986|pp=205–233}}

When questioned specifically about Piest, Gacy confessed to luring him to his house and strangling him on December 11. He also admitted to having slept alongside Piest's body that evening, before disposing of the corpse in the Des Plaines River in the early hours of December 13.<ref>{{cite news|last=Rossi|first=Rosalind A.|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=aE80AAAAIBAJ&pg=6517,3813660|title=Alleged Victim of Gacy Never Returned to Store|newspaper=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]]|date=February 10, 1980|access-date=October 24, 2018|via=Google News|archive-date=October 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201006152021/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=aE80AAAAIBAJ&pg=6517%2C3813660|url-status=live}} {{Open access}}</ref> On his way to the police station, he had been in a minor traffic accident after disposing of Piest. His vehicle had slid off an ice-covered road and had to be towed free.{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|pp=166–179}}
[[File:John Gacy Home Diagram Kokomo Tribune December 28 1978.jpg|thumb|upright=1.45|Diagram of Gacy's Norwood Park residence, depicting the dimensions of his crawl space]]

Accompanied by police, his lawyers, and his older sister, Gacy was driven to the I-55 bridge on December 23 to pinpoint the precise spot where he confessed to having thrown the body of Robert Piest and four other victims into the river.{{sfn|Cahill|1986|pp=205–233}}{{sfn|Amirante|2011|p=187}} Gacy was then taken to his house and instructed to mark his garage floor with orange spray paint to show where he had buried the individual he had supposedly killed in self-defense, whom he named as John Butkovich.{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|pp=184–188}} To assist officers in their search, Gacy drew a rough diagram of his basement to indicate where their bodies were buried. Twenty-six bodies were unearthed from Gacy's crawl space over the next week; three others were also unearthed elsewhere on his property. As the flooring and walls of the property were dismantled, additional evidence including identification cards and further [[Deviance (sociology)|deviant]] sex books were discovered.{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|pp=207–223}}<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Chirito|first=Robert|url=https://www.chicagomag.com/news/december-2019/patti-vasquez-john-wayne-gacy-michael-bonnin/ |title=Candidate for IL House: Gacy Killed My Brother |magazine=[[Chicago (magazine)|Chicago]] |date=December 10, 2019 |access-date=October 8, 2023}}</ref>{{efn|Police did confiscate sophisticated movie camera equipment from Gacy's property. However, no conclusive evidence exists to suggest any of Gacy's victims were forced to appear in [[Snuff film|snuff]] or pornographic films prior to their murder.{{sfn|Conti|2024|p=150}}}}