What Happened To John Wayne Gacy's Surviving Victim Jeffrey Rignall?
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When police excavated the crawlspace beneath 8213 W. Summerdale Ave, they discovered trenches filled with more than two dozen young men and teenage boys, killed and disposed of by "Killer Clown" John Wayne Gacy. For the past several years, Gacy had been luring these victims into his Chicago home. He sometimes used drugs to render them helpless before tying them up and sexually assaulting them. In the end, he was responsible for the deaths of at least 33 males, most of whom were found buried in the shallow mass grave underneath his flooring (via Biography).
But not all of Gacy's victims died. A decade before police made their grisly discovery in 1978, Gacy was sent to a prison in Iowa for sexually assaulting a teenage boy (per Britannica). After his release in 1970, there were other complaints made about him assaulting others, none of which led to his conviction (per Chicago Tribune). He is believed to have committed his first murder in early 1972 — the beginning of his ascent into a full-fledged killer.
For all the carnage Gacy created in his little bungalow, he left few witnesses that lived to tell their tales. One young man was just lucky enough to escape Gacy's lethal clutches and give the court a graphic account of the horror he faced. Jeffrey Rignall's story might have saved lives if he had been taken seriously by authorities. His account of events is one that demonstrated both his courage and tenacity in a fight to bring the man who assaulted him to justice.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
He was visiting Chicago when he met Gacy
Jeffrey Rignall had traveled to Chicago from Louisville in March 1978, ready to mix in some of the Windy City's gay bars and clubs. The Associated Press reports that John Wayne Gacy saw the 26-year-old man walking, prompting him to pull his car over and begin chatting with him. Gacy invited the man to smoke marijuana, an offer that Rignall accepted. After taking several hits from a joint, Rignall later told a Chicago court that he "was hit in the face by a dishcloth or a rag. It had a cold feeling and I had a buzzing bee in my head and I went unconscious."
Rignall was out for a time, only to have the rag once again pressed against his face when he began to come to. He remembers being carried into a house and laid out on the sofa. When he became fully aware, he saw that he was in a living room and that his abductor was standing behind the bar, making himself a cocktail. Gacy noticed that his captive was awake and said these chilling words: "There is a gun behind the bar, and I'd just as soon kill you as look at you."
Gacy hit Rignall's face with the rag again, and this time when he woke up, he found himself secured to a board by chains. To his horror, a fully naked Gacy was standing in front of him (via The People vs. Gacy). Rignall slipped in and out of consciousness while Gacy sexually assaulted him. But he would live to tell about it.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Rignall received limited help from authorities
Jeffrey Rignall's next memory is waking up clad in only his blue jeans. He was laying next to a statue in a park not far from the home he was just held prisoner in (per The People vs. Gacy). Beaten, bleeding, and under understandable emotional duress, he found his way to a local hospital. Police interviewed John Wayne Gacy's victim during his hospital stay but didn't offer much help. Rignall, despite being covered in rope burns and obvious damage to his face from the chloroform rag, wasn't able to give authorities a name or an address for his attacker (per Oxygen).
Alexa Danner, who served as executive producer of the 2021 Peacock docuseries "John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise," gave her opinion of why the case didn't go anywhere. She told Oxygen that "Rignall felt very much that he was dismissed by the police because of the attitudes at the time towards homosexuality. It's really hard to look back on that time today and understand how that could happen, but it was a different time, and it caused a lot of suffering for that particular victim."
But Rignall wasn't resigned to becoming another statistic for unsolved sexual assault cases. The man who survived John Wayne Gacy took matters into his own hands and began a search for his attacker that eventually led to Gacy being charged. And if he had been taken a bit more seriously at the time, four deaths could have been avoided.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
He got his day in court against Gacy
Jeffrey Rignall might not have known John Wayne Gacy's name or address, but he did have a good idea of what his car looked like. Additionally, he recalled a portion of the license plate number and was certain that the house he was held captive in was in a certain area. After a month-long stakeout, he finally found the vehicle he was looking for. He took note of the full license plate number and turned it in to police (via Oxygen). Gacy was arrested and charged, but only for a minor offense. In the book "John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster," it's revealed that the battery charge filed against Gacy allowed him to get out on bond. The New Yorker reports that Gacy ultimately settled with Rignall for a $3,000 payout.
This charge wasn't the last time that Rignall faced Gacy in a legal forum. After Gacy was arrested and charged with multiple murders later in 1978, Rignall appeared in court as a witness for his defense. Gacy's legal team chose to put Rignall on the stand in hopes to secure testimony that would prove that Gacy was not guilty by reason of insanity. That day in court was a harrowing one for Rignall. The Associated Press reports that Rignall testified about the ordeal and the toll it took on him in the aftermath. Rignall stated that the chloroform had done significant damage to his liver. He was also undergoing psychiatric treatment "daily" to cope with his encounter. At one point, he vomited and began to cry uncontrollably.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
He wrote a book about his nightmarish experience
Jeffrey Rignall stated on the stand that he felt that John Wayne Gacy was criminally insane. SpikyTV reports that because Gacy's attack on him was carried out in a "beastly and animalistic" manner, there was no way that he could be sane.
Rignall's story has been told in several documentary films and the recent Peacock docuseries "John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise." But Rignall was able to get his story out to the public years before any of the directors got the cameras rolling on sound stages. Rignall and his partner Ron Wilder collaborated on a book about the harrowing events that Rignall suffered at the hands of one of the 20th century's most notorious serial murderers (via Rolling Stone). The title of their book, "29 Below," is in reference to the number of bodies that investigators were able to unearth in Gacy's crawlspace. The book covers the abduction and sexual assault of Rignall from the victim's point of view, as well as how the brutal crime impacted him afterward.
The book was published in 1979 by Wellington Press and has long since been out of print (per Amazon). Copies of the book are fairly hard to come by and are considered coveted collector's items by true crime fans.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Rignall died in 2000
Jeffrey Rignall wasn't destined for a long life. The author died on December 24, 2000 at the age of 49 (per The Cinemaholic). SpikyTV reveals that his death was due to complications from the AIDS virus. His long-term partner Ron Wilder would go on to appear in the Peacock docuseries and was featured in two episodes (per IMDb). Through interviews, the man who knew Rignall best talked of how the entire experience with Gacy was one that severely altered Rignall's life and gave him difficulties even after Gacy was finally behind bars. Executive producer Alexa Danner echoed that revelation in an interview with Oxygen, stating that coping "was very difficult for him after the incident, after the assault."
But Danner gave credit where credit is due. She sang praises for Wilder being a wonderful partner and companion to Rignall, declaring that Wilder served as Rignall's "rock," a man who made Rignall's life better as he "just showered him with love throughout."
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).