Boys Enter the House

The Victims of John Wayne Gacy and the Lives They Left Behind

By: David Nelson

Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith

"Here is a work that emphasizes the full view of the lives of those young people that Gacy took.... It is essentially the Gacy story in reverse. Victims first.” (Jeff Coen, author of Murder in Canaryville)

As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown.

But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called “sex murderers” who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s. As public interest grew rapidly, victims became footnotes and statistics, lives lost not just to violence but to history.

Through the testimony of siblings, parents, friends, lovers, and other witnesses close to the case, Boys Enter the House retraces the footsteps of these victims as they make their way to the doorstep of the Gacy house itself.

©2021 David B. Nelson (P)2021 Recorded Books

A great book about the victims of John Gacy

If you follow true crime and know about Gacy, but want to know more about the boys and young men he murdered, I think you will like this book.

A voice for the dead

When it come to serial killers wond forget about the lives and families of the victims. This book tells the story of the lives of the victims and the families that kept searching for them, and eventually had to keep living without them. There are trigger warning so please read those and check in with yourself before reading. Otherwise my only gripe with this book is that it isn't in chronological order and jumps around a lot. The reader is warned about this in the beginning so it wasn't a surprise when it happened.

10/10 Narrator

If you are looking for just a book about Gacy this isn’t the book for you. This is a book about the 60s-70s and the people that lived in it. Each family history is gone into detail and was fascinating. The narrator was excellent. You could hear the righteous indignation in his voice at appropriate times.

The story of the boys

It was respectful of the boys, I found myself laughing at the recall of the mischief of a young Tim McCoy, and to tears when the "greyhound bus boy " had been identified

Not worth your time ..

long and boring..it feels like great intentions that derailed badly..no plot or storyline..save your credit !!

Wow!!! What a novel!!!

Everyone knows the details about the Gacy murders and about Gacy himself, but in this novel, David Nelson takes the time to introduce the reader to the actual boys and young men who are often overlooked. I cannot recommend this novel enough!

What we really needed to know about the Gacy murders.

This was an amazingly told and performed book about the victims, their lives, their families, their histories. It added humanity back to them all and now their life will remain outside of their horrific death. It was brilliantly written and performed and any one would get something from this book. I often found myself having to pause and reflect before continuing on. Sometimes for a whole day. So well done and those boys deserved this long ago.

Wonderful read

I have often wondered about these kids Gacy took the precious lives of. This book went into detail about most of the victims. Hopefully one day the remaining unidentified victims will be given a name.