In 1975, Marion Gacy moved to Arkansas to live with her daughter, as The New Yorker reports. At one point that year, she fell and broke her hip, prompting John Wayne's wife, now Carol Gacy, to travel to Marion's new home to help care for her during her recovery. While Carol was away, Gacy killed a young man that he employed through his contracting business and buried him in the crawlspace.
After Gacy's December 1978 arrest for multiple murders, he was sent to trial. Marion Gacy was called by the defense as a witness. While on the stand, she recalled the years of serious physical and emotional abuse that her son suffered at the hands of his alcoholic father. Her testimony didn't keep the jury from sentencing her son to death by lethal injection. And, she died in Arkansas on December 14, 1989, more than four years before Gacy's execution (per Find a Grave).
Marion and John Stanley Gacy are both interred at the Maryhill Catholic Cemetery in Cook County, Illinois. Their son opted to not be buried near them, in what might be seen as a semblance of respect for his family. During his interview with The New Yorker, he stated that he was "not going to be buried with my mother and father like some people have written because I don't want no one desecrating their graves." Gacy was cremated, his ashes reportedly given to one of his sisters.
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