Law and Order Actor Jack Merrill opened up and shared that he once had a terrifying encounter with serial killer John Wayne Gacy. In a new personal essay for PEOPLEMerrill says she was kidnapped and raped by Gacy when she was a teenager. (TW: The following story contains a detailed account of graphic sexual assault.)
In her column, Merrill first describes her difficult childhood growing up in Evanston, Illinois, with her parents and four older sisters. He recalls that his mother had a “narcissistic personality”, which caused him and his siblings to constantly “walk on eggshells” around his mother. Merrill’s relationship with his father was not good, having moved out of the family home at 17 after getting into a “fist fight” with his father on Christmas Eve.
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Merrill went to Chicago, where he rented a one-bedroom apartment and started working in clubs, but he knew he wanted to be an actor one day. That’s where her story with Gacy takes place, where she says she met the infamous killer one night after going swimming at the local YMCA.