Suspect may have slain up to 32

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The search for more bodies was to resume today, Des Plaines Police Chief Lee A. Alfano said.

"He's giving all kinds of statements, saying there's a body here, a body there," said Cook County Sheriff Richard J. Elrod. "It's my understanding that he gave local police and the state's attorney a statement," Elrod added, indicating the total number of bodies might reach 32.

"We have good reason for believing there might be as many as 32 bodies," said one investigator, "but we may never find them all or even document the number."

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One authoritative source said Gacy told of not only burying bodies around his house but also of dumping some in the many lagoons and small rivers around the metropolitan Chicago area.

"It will be a very slow process," said Alfano, adding that authorities will reopen investigations into unsolved disappearances of teen-age boys and young males over the last several years.

Among those unsolved cases are the disappearances of at least two young men who worked for Gacy, authorities said.

Twice married and twice divorced, Gacy, who was born in Chicago, returned to the area a few

years ago after serving 18 months of a 10-year sentence in Iowa for sodomy.

If the reports of up to 32 bodies are correct, this would rank as one of the biggest mass murders in U.S. History..

Among other such cases, 27 victims died at the hands of a homosexual torture ring in Houston in 1973. The alleged head of the ring, Dean A. Corll, was killed by Elmer Wayne Henley, who subsequently was convicted of killing six of the victims. His conviction was overturned Dec. 20 on grounds that the trial court did not give enough consideration to a request for a change of venue.

John Gacy Jr.

Associated Press