THE day John Wayne Gacy was executed, fellow serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was also preparing to meet his maker.
Dahmer wasn’t facing the death penalty for the murder of his victims, also boys and young men, but in an eerie coincidence was baptised in prison as he sought redemption for his gruesome crimes.
The day, March 10 1994, that links the two murderers, who killed 50 young men and boys between them, was made all the more strange by there being a solar eclipse.
Gacy marked the end of his life with a defiant send off, telling those gathered to see his execution to “kiss my ass”.
Born on March 17, 1942, John Wayne Gacy began his crime spree with a string of sexual assaults for which was convicted in 1968.
He would lure his victims in with the promise of construction work.
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When he was released from prison in 1970, Gacy faced multiple sexual assault allegations.
Gacy terrorised the Chicago area for six years until 1978, and earned his chilling 'killer clown' nickname after it emerged that he worked as a clown prior to his crimes.
His first victim was 16-year-old Timothy McCoy, who he stabbed to death after picking him up from a bus terminal.
It was at his Chicago home where he would claim his victims.
He would trick boys and young men into his house and pretend to perform a magic trick on them, often in his clown persona.
After convincing his victims to put on a pair of handcuffs, he would rape and torture them before killing his captive.
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He would then bury many of his victims under his house.
Police were investigating the disappearance of teenager Robert Piest, with Gacy the last person thought to have been with the 15-year-old, when they made a gruesome discovery.
They came across the bodies of 29 boys and young men while four other bodies were found in the Des Plaines River.
The smell of the bodies had been building up for years but Gacy dismissed the questions by saying it was just a build-up of damp.
In another strange coincidence, Gacy was arrested in 1978 – the same year Dahmer, dubbed the Milwaukee Cannibal, killed his first victim, Steven Hicks.
Nicknamed "The Milwaukee Cannibal," Dahmer killed and dismembered at least 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991.
He murdered and dismembered 17 males over a 13-year period before he was apprehended by authorities and at the time of his arrest, police also made a macabre discovery.
They came across seven skulls, two hearts, severed hands, skeletons and dismembered torsos, along with Polaroid photos of the victims, saws, knives, a drill and acid.
Dahmer was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in prison in 1992.
During his time behind bars prisoners recall he would shape his food into body parts and squirt ketchup on them to replicate blood, as if in reference to his grisly cannibalism.
Dahmer was killed by fellow Columbia Correctional Institution inmate Christopher Scarver on November 28, 1994.
Just before his death, it was reported he found God while in prison after being sent religious material by Curt Booth, a member of the Crescent Church of Christ in Oklahoma.
Booth had seen an interview Dahmer had given in which he had said that he wished he could “find a little peace”, according to the Oklahoman.
Dahmer replied to Booth thanking him for the courses but said he was “concerned” he wouldn’t be able to find a pastor to carry out the baptism.
Booth then contacted Roy Ratcliff, evangelist at the Madison Church of Christ in Wisconsin.
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Ratcliff set up weekly Bible lessons with Dahmer and baptised him May 10, pushing under water until he was fully immersed.
"I tried several others (preachers), but they were kind of scared to go in," Booth said after.
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