The Boy Who Cried Gacy

Yesterday, I finished The Last Victim by Jason Moss, the supposedly true, autobiographical account of a young man's correspondence with famous criminals.

It was a very dramatic story -- but I'm not really buying that it's complete truth.

Moss, having a morbid fascination with criminals and a tendency to become obsessed with anything that interested him, began writing letters to John Wayne Gacy at age 18. In an effort to get Gacy to write back, he fashioned his letters to make it look like he was the murder's ideal victim -- young, sexually confused and vulnerable.

Gacy took the bait. He wrote back letter upon letter, usually about deviant sexual acts he thought Moss should try. Moss responded in character, telling Gacy he had tried this or that, making Gacy think himself a mentor for Moss's young mind. Eventually, the two began talking on the phone and developed a relationship with culminated in Moss visiting Gacy just a few weeks before he was executed.

High on his supposed easy manipulation of Gacy, Moss began writing to other famed criminals, including Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer. The aim, according to Moss, was to get inside the criminal mind, learn what made it tick. But of course, there was also the desire to manipulate, the desire to outwit the criminal mind. For Ramirez and Manson, he posed not as a victim but as a fan, someone on the outside who believed in the mission these men had begun and offering to help carry it out. For Dahmer, he made himself look like a lonely teen who thought the convicted murder might need a friend. They all wrote back, but the big one, the big prize, was always Gacy.

What Moss didn't realize was that Gacy was manipulating him just as much as he was manipulating Gacy, a fact that became crystal clear when, upon Gacy's invitation, he visited the clown killer in prison and, surprise, surprise, Gacy tried to kill him.

As I finished the book, I felt very much like Moss must have before he began his letter-writing project -- morbidly curious about what would make a person do such a thing, and simultaneously disgusted by what he did. But the overwhelming feeling is the urge to roll my eyes and say, "yeah right."

Moss boasts that he crafted the perfect stories to tell his victims, the serial killers, to make them interested enough to write back to him. He talks about things he told Gacy he had done, disgusting, unspeakable things, and in the next paragraph tells the reader a story about the day he and his brother narrowly escaped a kidnapper in a casino arcade. He tells the story of his visit with Gacy in intricate detail, including confession of his crimes and specific threats Gacy made to Moss. It's all very compelling, but I just don't buy it.

Did Gacy really threaten Moss? An admitted braggart and liar, Moss gives the reader reason to doubt his word. Conveniently, for the most dramatic events Moss describes, there was never anyone else around to corroborate his story. He claims he was left alone in an unguarded room with Gacy, and even in the casino kidnapping tale, his brother was too absorbed in a video game to know what was going on. And of course, he was always too scared to tell his parents, who he claims were unsupportive and teeters on the edge of saying they were emotionally abusive, but anecdotally, it sounds to me like they were ordinary parents. They just had an oddball kid.

Moss would have the reader believe that he could do no wrong. In every story he tells, he is the hero and never backs down. The one and only weakness he will admit is a weak stomach, which, of course, anyone could forgive of someone who has done such incredible things and shown such strength and fortitude. Give me a break.

Moss admits in his telling of the story that it was his own odd psychology that drove him to do what he did, and he even goes so far as to say that it's made him paranoid about trusting people. I believe that. Because after reading his tale of manipulation, I feel as if he's made a victim of me too. He tells his readers the most interesting story he could think to tell, expecting them to buy it, hook, line and sinker.

What's the truth? Moss made sure we'll never know; he shot and killed himself in the bathroom of his Nevada home on June 6, 2006 (6-6-06 -- coincidence? Again, we'll never know). It's a tragic end, certainly, and it's a shame that he was never able to come to terms with his actions, and that his friends and family were unable to help him.

Moss said in the book that Gacy had told him that one day, he'd take his own life, that he would know when the time was right. Did he think of that as he pulled the trigger? Had Gacy finally won the battle of manipulation? No one can be sure, but whatever Moss was thinking in those last few moments of his life, I can't help thinking he felt he was getting the last word.