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Hollywood is seemingly obsessed with serial killer stories, and one veteran actor is now relating his own, all-too real encounter with John Wayne Gacy.
Jack Merrill, whose decades-long career includes parts in Eight Men Out, Law & Order, Sex and the City, Grey’s Anatomy, Numb3rs and Hannah Montana, wrote this week about surviving abduction and rape at the hands of Gacy, a serial killer who sometimes dressed as a clown and who authorities say sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 young men and boys.
Merill says his assault happened in 1978, when he was 19.
“One night,” he writes for People, “I was walking home. A guy pulled over and said, ‘Do you want to go for a ride?'”
Merill recalls that he accepted, only to be drugged and dragged to Gacy’s home.
“He put this homemade contraption around my neck,” writes the actor. “It had ropes and pulleys, and it went around my back and through my handcuffed hands in a way that if I struggled, I would choke.”
Merrill says that Gacy “stuck a gun in my mouth” before raping him.
“Finally, I could tell he was tiring. All of a sudden he said, ‘I’ll take you home,'” writes Merrill, who at one point recalls his abductor telling him, “You’re not like those other kids.”
Whatever the case, “He dropped me off not far from where he’d picked me up. It was around 5 in the morning. He gave me his phone number and said, “Maybe we’ll get together again sometime.” When I got home, I flushed the number down the toilet, then took a shower.”
Merrill says a few months later he saw a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times that read, “Bodies Found at Suburban Site” and he knew the man involved was the one who had abducted and assaulted him.
“I made a pact with myself that I was going to get past this,” he writes. “I wasn’t going to leave my happiness in that house.”
Part of Merrill’s healing has been acting.
“I got into the NYU drama department. In 1986 a bunch of friends and I formed Naked Angels, an Off-Broadway troupe for actors and playwrights. Acting was therapeutic for me. You’re forced to express yourself, and there is some honesty that goes with that. Recognition and acceptance.”
Another part has been consciously forgiving Gacy for what he did.
“I read about Oprah doing a show about forgiveness,” says Merill. “There was a woman who had been raped, beaten and left for dead. She said if she didn’t forgive her attacker, she couldn’t get on with her life. I knew I had to do that—to somehow forgive Gacy.”
Another thing that helps: “I’ve also found love. My husband and I have been together for 23 years.”
Merrill says he once spoke to a movie executive about telling the story of his encounter with Gacy.
“That’s how you want to be remembered?” the exec replied.
Merrill says, “I thought, ‘No, I guess not. That would be tying myself to him.’ “
Now, however, he doesn’t see it that way. He’s created a one-man show called The Save Play, which deals with his upbringing and that horrific night with Gacy in 1978. It’s currently at the Electric Lodge in Venice.
“There’s a lot of people who have had bad things happen to them,” Merrill says. “Many people who have been raped don’t talk about it. I understand that. Until now I’ve only told close friends. But doing my new show, I walk through it every night. I’m proud of the journey. I was able to learn from the bad and use it for the good. You know, I’m lucky. I’ve always been lucky.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, get crisis support at the RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 800-656-HOPE, or click here to chat with a trained support specialist.
