Serial killer Gacys painting brings bad luck
annein...@gmail.com
By Laurel J. Sweet
Sunday, November 20, 2005
A Malden man's guilty pleasure of investing in murderabilia has come
back to haunt him thanks to a "cursed" clown painting by serial killer
John Wayne Gacy, which the collector claims turned his life into a
three-ring circus.
"I just want to get rid of it," said musician Nikki Stone about the
late Gacy's signed self-portrait of his terrifying alter ego, "Pogo the
Clown."
Since he plunked down $3,000 in 2001 to buy the framed oil from
national murderabilia merchant Arthur Rosenblatt, Stone said his
beloved dog has died and his mother found out she had cancer.
When a friend offered to store the painting at his house, the
friend's neighbor was killed in a car crash. A second friend who kept
the painting for Stone attempted suicide, Stone said.
"I've never even hung it," said Stone, who hopes a less
superstitious buyer will at least cover the $3,000 he blew - even if
only to burn the true-crime artifact.
The creepy conversation piece is now in the care of Stone's pal
Shawn McCarron, a consignment art dealer and owner of Kaleidoscope
Tattoo & Art in Cambridge.
McCarron has had his own share of bad luck: His mother, Maureen, 58,
was murdered in Malden in 1999.
"I'm not afraid of it," McCarron said of the painting. "I don't
believe in the hocus-pocus and the bad mojo that comes with it."
And if McCarron should pocket a buck or two from the oil's sale, as
he sees it, "Every murderer in the world should be rolled into one.
They all owe me."
McCarron keeps the Gacy under wraps, but said, "People do ask to see
it. They get a chill through their body. I've had people say, 'Oh my
God, put that back in the box.' "
John "Killer Clown" Gacy, a suburban Chicago contractor and former
shoe salesman, was executed in 1994 at age 52 for the torture and
murders of 33 boys and men. Gacy, who also performed as Pogo the Clown
at children's parties, would kill his victims while raping them, then
bury the bodies in a crawl space in his home.
Stone admits he once thought it would be "super cool" to own a Gacy
original. "It's the most evil of bastards who are most in demand," he
reasoned at the time.
And after all, actor Johnny Depp invested in a Gacy clown painting.
Then again, Depp reportedly became so weirded out by the piece that he
developed a pathological fear of clowns and unloaded the artwork.
Lady Libra
your senses. I'd feel like a tool laying out that kind of money for what
equates to a canvas with a poor excuse for art scrawled on it, jut so you
could say"I bought it from Gacy!".
This story is so much better that saying my spouse or current cash flow
problems force me to get rid of an item one might buy out of poor impulse
control.
I'm so Irish it's not even funny(by definition extremely superstitious in
some areas), and I'm not buying this story of misfortune at the hands of a
bad painting. Gacy, being a sociopath, didn't have anything to give, much
less put any of himself into any "artwork" he may have done.