Recognising the symptoms of a psychopath.

Psychopathy

John Wayne Gacy was tried , convicted and was put into a death sentence for the murder of 33 young males . Gacy initially confessed to the crimes but later plead no-guilty due to insanity . The court didn 't accept the plea and sentenced him to death . The last words he said before the lethal injectioning was "kiss my ass (Lohr , 1998 . Using Hare 's Psychological Checklist , Gacy qualifies as a psychopath who knew what he was doing but didn 't feel remorse for his deeds . Below are some of the characteristics that

Gacy exhibited

Glib and Superficial Charm

Based on books and articles written about him , John Wayne was a respected businessman , running one of his father-in-law 's franchisees He was also an active member of the Jaycees and even aimed to become its president . Gacy also was a strong supporter of the Democratic Party The man was highly involved in the community . He even threw parties for the neighborhood kids and acted as the clown . He was very intelligent and showed talent for sales . He used glibness and superficial charm to mislead the people around him . In an account from one of his victims Gacy was able to lure him into his car by being friendly , making small talk and offering to smoke marijuana with him (Bell Bardsley , n .d

Cunning and Manipulativeness

Gacy had used cunning and manipulativeness to lure his victims According to the mother of one of his victims , a boy of 15 was offered a job in a construction firm and went to talk to the contractor (Taylor 2003 . But his mother never saw him after that . Gacy had also used his contraction firm to victimized others . Five of the young people working for him had disappeared , only to be discovered years later to be buried in a crawl space in Gacy 's house . He also tricked his victims into wearing handcuffs by telling them that the handcuffs were used in his tricks as a clown . When the victim would wear the handcuffs , Gacy would then kept them captive while he assaulted and killed them

Lack of Remorse

After Gacy was imprisoned , he failed to show guilt for the rape and murder of the boys . Instead , he tried to use insanity as an escape . In an interview with a reporter , Lohr related that Gacy seemed to take pride in all the attention and the books written about him

Early Behavior Problems

In accounts of Gacy 's early life , it was said that he had a turbulent relationship with his abusive father . This is probably the reason why Gacy attended four high schools without graduating from any of them

Sexual Promiscuity

Gacy 's first wife divorced him after he was convicted of committing sodomy with a teenage boy . Prior to this , there had been rumors about his homosexual preferences and activities , including the passes he made on his male crew in the fast food restaurants that he ran . But the final straw to his marriage was...