Did John Wayne Gacy Ever Truly Confess? Peacock Series Reopens the Debate and Honors Victims

Warning: Subtle spoilers ahead.

Peacock's 'Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy', is the latest TV series that falls under the trending true crime dramas, but its subtle discussion of the heinous crimes urged viewers to reconsider their prejudices against the killer.

The eight-part miniseries tells the real-life story of John Wayne Gacy, a friendly contractor and community volunteer from Chicago who preyed on and murdered vulnerable boys and young men.

But unlike the other true crime dramas like Ryan Murphy's 'American Crime Story' and Netflix's 'Monster' series, showrunner Patrick Macmanus opted to veer away from showing shocking, gore-filled scenes and focus on building up the tension caused by the crimes in the viewers' minds.

What Makes the Show Different?

For the first six hours, the bloody murders and the deranged killer will be excluded from the story. Instead, viewers will feel the anticipation of looking for the victims and knowing their fate, which will be downplayed by the local authorities.

The pilot started with a mother, Elizabeth Priest (Marin Ireland), looking for her teenage son, who was supposed to have an interview with a contractor for a job, but never came back.

Elizabeth sought the help of the police, but Chief Detective Joe Kozenczak (James Badge Dale) failed to see the urgency, telling her that kids just eventually show up.

The worried mother did not stop looking for her boy, so she asked Rafael Tovar (Gabriel Luna) for help. Rafael's investigation led him to John Wayne Gacy's (Michael Chernus) home.

Further investigation and interrogation led to Gacy's admission, prompting the police to finally act and look into the suspect's home. That is when the real horror started, since the authorities discovered a spine-tingling collection of dead bodies.

The Showrunner's Intentions

Instead of the gory, nauseating scenes of murders and defiling of dead people, this series showed endless scenes of police investigations, legal maneuvering, and flashbacks featuring the lives of the victims.

The series also avoided showing how the killer preyed on the victims, but it told the story about their vulnerabilities that led to their grim fate.

'It is honestly sort of the main driving theme of the show,' Macmanus said in an interview with TVLine. 'Number one, the shows I've worked with before have all been driven by some semblance of systemic failure. It's something that I am just interested in exploring. This one was absolutely the systemic failure of the police to be able to find and stop Gacy, specifically the Chicago Police Department.'

Macmanus admitted that part of the problem during that period was the failure in communication, but the biggest issue then was the prejudice that was blinding the authorities.

'I want to go on the record as saying that we are in no way, shape or form, demonizing police, because if you look on the flip side of the coin, you're look you're watching a whole other story of police who are in that pit every single day for months, trying to unearth and uncover and name every victim that was in John Wayne Gacy's house. So we are lauding the police as much as we are critiquing and analyzing the failures of the system,' the series showrunner added.

Viewers can watch all eight episodes of 'Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy' on Peacock starting 16 October.