Actor Jack Merrill opens up about his harrowing journey of surviving a night in the house of notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who killed 33 people. From a childhood marked by a tumultuous family dynamic to the skillset that ultimately saved his life, Merrill shares the tools he used to survive and the pact he made to ensure Gacy would never control his future.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00One of my big messages with this show is that I'm not a victim.
00:04Something happened to me.
00:05It was one night, and I made a pact with myself at that time
00:09that he controlled me for one night,
00:10but he would not control my life.
00:12And I really made a solid decision on that,
00:16that he was not going to be the identifying factor in my life,
00:19that this trauma was not going to guide my life.
00:22I just want everyone to understand that we all
00:25go through stuff, all of us.
00:29There's no shame in that.
00:30Everybody stumbles.
00:31That car that I got in, that possibility,
00:35passes all of us all the time.
00:37We all do experience trauma.
00:39Whatever it is, no one's trauma is greater than anyone else's.
00:43It's not, because you're not experiencing it,
00:45so you don't know what that trauma is.
00:48And I don't judge other people's trauma,
00:51or how they deal with it, or what it means to them.
00:55I'm proud of the accomplishments I've made.
00:57I'm performing now in Los Angeles,
00:58but of course I want to take the show to New York.
01:00I want to take the show to Chicago.
01:01I want to take the show to London, for sure.
01:04And I'd also like to take it to smaller cities, too.
01:05I mean, I'm going to spend the next few years on this.
01:08I want to do my show, and it's exciting to do a show.
01:12And I'm really proud of it,
01:13and I think maybe it'll help people.
01:15When people hear it, they say it's an inspiring story,
01:17so that makes me happy that it's an inspiring story.
01:21I think I've always tried to choose the positive.
01:24I'm super lucky.
01:25I have great friends.
01:26I'm happy.
01:27I'm delusionally happy, I think.