Jack Merrill, Grey’s Anatomy Star, Breaks Silence on Abduction by Iconic Serial Killer
The actor was just 19 when he was assaulted by the 'Killer Clown'
Actor Jack Merrill, known for his roles in Grey’s Anatomy and Law & Order, recently shocked the public by revealing a dark chapter from his past. Forty-five years ago, Merrill was abducted by none other than John Wayne Gacy, one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history, known as the ‘killer clown.’
In a recent interview with People, Merrill shared how Gacy approached him when he was just 19, after a swim practice in Chicago. Unaware of the danger, Merrill accepted Gacy’s offer for a ride. What started as an innocent drive quickly turned into a nightmare when Gacy produced a cloth soaked in chemicals and forced him to inhale it.
Merrill explained that when he came to, he was handcuffed in Gacy’s home. Although he was briefly freed to drink and smoke marijuana, things took a darker turn when Gacy shackled him again and sexually assaulted him. Merrill recalled with horror the rope-and-pulley device Gacy used to strangle his victims if they resisted.
Hollywood actor Jack Merrill, 65, has disclosed that he was kidnapped and raped by serial killer John Wayne Gacy in 1978.
At just 19 years old, Merrill managed to escape after Gacy restrained him with ropes, threatened him with a gun, and assaulted him, just months before… pic.twitter.com/M2a5J8Z5sp
— Morbid Knowledge (@Morbidful) October 26, 2024
“I Knew If I Fought Him, I Didn’t Have Much of a Chance”
Despite the brutality of the attack, he chose not to scream or resist, certain that any wrong move could cost him his life. “I knew I couldn’t anger him. I just had to diffuse the situation and act like everything was okay. That’s the way I had survived as a kid—we learned to lie low during my parents’ rages,” Merrill confessed to People
At the end of the ordeal, John Wayne Gacy dropped him off close to where he’d picked him up, even giving him his phone number. In shock and unaware of the full extent of the danger he’d been in, Merrill decided not to go to the police. Years later, he would learn that at least 33 young men’s bodies were found buried under Gacy’s house, all victims of the infamous ‘killer clown.’
Today, at 65, Jack Merrill has chosen to speak out to share his story and honor the memory of those who didn’t survive. He has also channeled his experience into art, writing the play The Save as a way to process the trauma he endured.
Who Was John Wayne Gacy, the ‘Killer Clown’?
John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer and sex offender who terrorized the country in the 1970s. Known as the ‘Killer Clown,’ Gacy led a disturbing double life: he was active in his community, even performing as a clown at children’s parties, all while hiding his violent crimes.
Between 1972 and 1978, he killed at least 33 young men and boys, often luring them to his home in Norwood Park, Illinois, by offering work or friendship. He would then assault and kill them, burying most of his victims in the crawl space beneath his house. Gacy’s arrest and the discovery of the remains in his home horrified the public, as many found it hard to reconcile his friendly public persona with his brutal crimes.
He was convicted in 1980 and sentenced to death, ultimately being executed by lethal injection in 1994. Jack Merrill’s revelation and Gacy’s case remains one of the most infamous examples of a serial killer hiding in plain sight and remind us that the scars left on John Wayne Gacy’s victims and survivors still linger.