Ten years ago, three days before Christmas, Dr. Robert Stein was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. It was a routine call for a medical examiner _ police had found two bodies. But there was nothing routine about the case that began unfolding that night, when Stein was called to the home of John Wayne Gacy. Stein looked out a window and grimaced at the snow that was burying Chicago, then dressed warmly for the drive to Norwood Park Township just east of O'Hare International Airport. He walked into Gacy's ranch-style home and caught a whiff of trouble. ``It was the odor of death,'' Stein said, recalling that two evidence technicians had found two decaying bodies in the crawl space. ``I said, `Oh brother, let's stop right here.' I was convinced there were more bodies. Gacy later drew a diagram on a piece of paper and showed that there were many, many bodies.'' In the crawl space alone, 29 bodies were found. Four more were dumped in nearby rivers. Ten years ago this week, Gacy _ successful building contractor, decorated Jaycee, amateur clown, Democratic activist _ became king of the mass murderers apprehended in this country. Gacy told police he strangled all but one of his 33 male victims by wrapping rope around their necks and twisting it with a stick. He had sex with some of them before killing them. The murders were committed over a three-year period beginning in 1975. In 1980, he was convicted of 33 murders _ more than anyone before or since. Gacy, 46, received death sentences for 12 of the killings and life in prison for each of the remaining 21. In September, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the convictions and the sentences. Execution is scheduled for Jan. 11, but is almost certain to be delayed by appeals. Illinois' last execution was in 1962. Today, Gacy sits in a 46-square-foot cell on death row at Menard Correctional Center in Chester, a small town in southern Illinois. He is allowed to exercise an hour a day and to spend another 60 minutes in the prison law library. ``He's not a disciplinary problem,'' says Nic Howell, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. ``He was painting landscapes the last time I saw him.'' Gacy's name surfaced briefly in this year's presidential campaign when a pamphlet distributed by Illinois Republicans claimed that Gacy would have been eligible for weekend passes had he committed his crimes in Massachusetts under Gov. Michael Dukakis' administration. Dukakis labeled the pamphlet ``garbage,'' and Gacy later wrote to state GOP officials complaining about the ``sleazy'' tactic. At Gacy's request, corrections officials no longer relay oral requests for interviews. The uneasy memories of Gacy and the crimes that stunned the world remain close to the surface. ``What I especially remember was the ghoulishness of people on the outside of the house,'' said Stein, who is still Cook County medical examiner and owns two Gacy paintings. ``Just like counting down the seconds in a basketball game, they were counting up the bodies that were pulled from the ground.'' Gacy, a Chicago native, lived in Springfield and Iowa before returning in the early 1970s to start his own business, specializing in remodeling work at retail stores. He often hired teen-age boys. Joseph Kozenczak, chief of detectives in Des Plaines who is now police chief, had been looking for Robert Piest, a 15-year-old who disappeared after telling his mother he was going to see Gacy about a summer job. A few days later, the detective got a search warrant for Gacy's home. ``We never suspected we were in the middle of mass murders _ we were looking for one kid,'' Kozenczak said. Eight of the bodies were so badly decomposed they were never identified. At a funeral where authorities hoped they might get clues to the identities by watching the mourners, this was the final prayer offered for them: ``Lord, you alone know the names of these brothers, names you have written on the palm of your hand. We praise and thank you for the gift of life you gave them. We are sorry for the violence which took away their mortal lives.''
