The veteran “Law & Order” and “Grey's Anatomy” actor revealed Wednesday that he was abducted, raped and held at gunpoint by notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy more than 45 years ago. did.
Jack Merrill described himself as a “boring 19-year-old” in 1978 when a “killer clown” pulled up on his way home from swimming at the YMCA in Chicago.
“Would you like to go for a ride?” Merrill recalled being asked in her essay. Published by People Publishing.
Merrill, who had lived alone in a studio apartment since she was 17, jumped into a stranger's car before he could say, “You're smart.” You are different from other children. ”
Merrill believed he was going to get a ride around the block, but Gacy quickly drove to another neighborhood, where he told her to lock her door and said she was near the Kennedy Expressway off-ramp northwest of downtown Chicago. I stopped the car.
Gacy, then 36, asked Merrill if she had ever done a “popper” (alkyl nitrite), where she pulled out a brown bottle, splashed the liquid onto a rag, and pressed it into a teenage boy's face. Ta.
Merrill, who had a boyfriend at the time, passed out and woke up handcuffed outside Gacy's Northwood Park Township home, six miles east of Chicago O'Hare International Airport. He said he noticed that.
“He told me to be quiet. The light from the back of the house hit his eyes and I suddenly realized how dangerous he was,” Merrill wrote. “I knew not to make him angry. I just had to diffuse the situation and act like everything was okay.”
Merrill said this method of defusing tension was the same one he and his sisters used to fend off their parents' wrath.
“That's how I survived as a child. We learned to lie low while our parents were furious,” Merrill recalled.
Merrill said her mother was a narcissist and that “nothing existed outside of the impact that life had on her.”
His father, legendary MLB historian and National Baseball Hall of Famer Jerome Holtzman, was a baseball writer for the Chicago Sun-Times at the time.
Once inside the dark house, Merrill said she complied when asked if she trusted Gacy, and Gacy removed the teen's handcuffs before the two drank beer and marijuana.
Gacy re-handcuffed the victim and dragged him into the hallway before attaching a homemade contraption to Merrill's neck.
The device had ropes and pulleys attached to it that went around her back and threaded the handcuffs through, which would suffocate her if she struggled.
Gacy held a gun to Merrill's mouth before raping the victim.
“I knew if I fought him I wouldn't have much of a chance. I never freaked out or screamed,” Merrill said.
Merrill admitted that she felt sympathy for her abuser “in a way.” “He didn't necessarily want to do what he was doing, but he couldn't stop.”
When Gacy appeared tired, the killer surprised the teenage boy.
“All of a sudden he said, 'I'm taking you home.'”
Merrill was dropped off at around 5 a.m. near where she was picked up.
“Maybe someday we'll get together again,” Gacy reportedly said as he handed her a piece of paper with his phone number written on it.
Merrill flushed the paper down the toilet as soon as she got home. He chose to take a shower and went to a diner for eggs and a milkshake, but did not call the police.
“I didn't call the police. I didn't know at the time that he was the murderer,” he said. “I made a promise to myself that I would get through this situation. I wasn't going to leave my happiness in that house.”
When news broke that Gacy had been arrested and his body found inside his home, Merrill called the Chicago Sun-Times.
“'That man raped me.' The man who responded said, 'What did you say your name was?' ” he said. ”
Merrill did not leave his name because his father still worked there.
“I knew that if the police needed my help, I would come forward,” the actor said.
Gacy was convicted of raping, torturing, and murdering at least 33 men between the ages of 14 and 21.
In December 1978, 26 bodies were pulled from the crawl space of Gacy's home.
Five of the victims remain unidentified after authorities identified Frances Wayne Alexander of North Carolina through dental records in October 2021.
He was arrested in December 1978, convicted and sentenced to death.
Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994 at Statesville Correctional Facility.
Meryl moved to New York, where she began acting, which she found therapeutic.
“You have to express yourself and that comes with a certain amount of honesty. It's recognition and acceptance,” he added.
Despite surviving the traumatic moment of her death, Merrill called herself lucky to end her life with her husband of 23 years and two pets by her side.
“There are a lot of people who have had bad things happen to them. A lot of people who are raped don't talk about it. I understand that.”
The actor, who appears in his one-man show “The Save” in Los Angeles, did not reveal the story to anyone.
“I've only told my closest friends before, but when I do a new show, I walk through it every night. I'm proud of this journey.”
