Behind the smiling mask of Pogo the Clown hid one of America’s most terrifying killers. John Wayne Gacy was a successful Chicago contractor and community volunteer—until police uncovered the remains of thirty-three boys buried beneath his suburban home.
In this definitive account, journalist Tim Cahill reconstructs Gacy’s double life with chilling precision, from an abusive childhood to the compulsions that drove him to murder. Through years of interviews, court records, and unflinching reporting, Cahill reveals not only the crimes but the fractured psychology of a man who embodied ordinary evil.
Buried Dreams is a landmark work of true crime—“an absorbing and disturbing story” (Publishers Weekly) and “the stuff of wrenching nightmares” (The Wall Street Journal).
