Illinois Court Sets Execution Date for Mass Murderer Gacy
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CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday set May 10 as the execution date for John Wayne Gacy, the convicted sex slayer of 33 young men and boys.
Since his conviction in 1980, Gacy has avoided execution through a variety of legal appeals. But he exhausted what might have been his final viable appeal in October when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his argument that the jurors who sentenced him might have been confused by instructions from the judge.
Gacy has been in prison since 1978, when investigators began unearthing the skeletons of his victims from a crawl space underneath his suburban Chicago home. He was given 12 death sentences.
Illinois has executed one person, by lethal injection, since 1977.
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