Actor Jack Merrill who has appeared in Law & Order reveals that he was abducted and raped by serial killer

Actor Jack Merrill, whose on-screen credits include Sex and the City, Hannah Montana and Grey’s Anatomy, has opened up to People magazine how he was abducted and raped by the serial killer John Wayne Gacy when he was jut 19 years of age, he is 65 now. 

Merrill told People magazine that: “A guy pulled over and said ‘Do you want to go for a ride?’. I thought I’d go around the block a few times, but he started driving quickly and turned into a really bad neighborhood. He said, ‘Lock your door. It’s dangerous’. I said they kept that out of the papers because it was bad for business on nearby Rush Street, and he said, ‘How do you know that, huh? You’re smart. You’re not like those other kids’.”

Merrill then recalled how John Wayne Gacy pulled up outside his house and said: “The house was dark. I sensed it was a trap. He asked if I trusted him, and I said I did, so he took off the handcuffs. There was a bar in the middle of the house. We had beer, and he had this strong pot, and then he put the handcuffs back on and dragged me down the hall. He put this homemade contraption around my neck. It had ropes and pulleys, and it went around my back and through my handcuffed hands in a way that if I struggled, I would choke. I did at one point and started to lose air.”

Merrill continued: “He stuck a gun in my mouth. Then he raped me in the bedroom. I knew if I fought him, I didn’t have much of a chance. I never freaked out or yelled. I also felt sorry for him in a way, like he didn’t necessarily want to be doing what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop.”

The actor said that after he was raped and he was dropped home, he took a shower and didn’t call the police. However, after a few months, he recalled that he “saw a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times: Bodies Found at Suburban Site. The story had a map, and there was the Cumberland exit on the Kennedy Expressway. I called the paper and said, ‘That guy raped me’. The man who answered said, ‘What did you say your name was?’ I didn’t say my name. I was sensitive about my name because people knew my father. That was his paper. I hung up the phone. I thought if the police ever needed my help, I’d come forward. They found all these bodies under that house, and years later he was convicted. But like I said, if they had needed me, I would have come forward.”

Despite what happened to him, Merrill told People magazine that he found love and he and his husband have now been together for 23 years and share a rescue dog, Fred. He also said: “There’s a lot of people who have had bad things happen to them. Many people who have been raped don’t talk about it. I understand that. Until now I’ve only told close friends. But doing my new show, I walk through it every night. I’m proud of the journey. I was able to learn from the bad and use it for the good. You know, I’m lucky. I’ve always been lucky.”

In 1994, the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was found guilty of killing 33 youths and burying most of them in trenches beneath his home in Chicago, was executed by lethal injection.

If you have been affected by rape, there is a rape and sexual abuse support line run by Rape Crisis England and Wales– you can call the helpline on 0808 500 2222 or use the online chat (both are free and are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year)