Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, hosted a book signing event on June 13, 2024, for Karen Conti of Conti & Dolan and author of “Killing Time,” her account of representing serial killer John Wayne Gacy in his final appeals while on death row in the 1990s.
In a Q and A at the Chicago Cut restaurant, Conti explained to the group some of the interesting facts behind representing one of the most hated clients in America, including how difficult it was to watch his sobbing relatives and friends who “loved him unconditionally” before he was sent to be executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center in 1994. Since then, Illinois has outlawed the death penalty.
Gacy was convicted of raping, torturing, and killing 33 boys and young men, then burying them in a crawl space under his Chicago home on the northwest side. Conti was in high school at the time when it was front-page news. She told the group Gacy had to have at least two accomplices to carry out those killings and believes there are more bodies still buried. She also recalled her first encounter with the serial killer in 1993 when he was on death row at the Menard Correctional Center in downstate Illinois. All of this is recounted in her 250-page book.
“Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy: Defending America’s Most Evil Serial Killer on Death Row” is a recent Silver Winner of the Nonfiction Book Awards and is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book stores.