Years ago, actor Jack Merrill spoke to a Hollywood movie executive about telling the story of the harrowing night in 1978 when he was abducted by serial killer John Wayne Gacy. “That’s how you want to be remembered?” asked the exec. Merrill recalls,“I thought, ‘No, I guess not. That would be tying myself to him.’ ”

For decades, Merrill tried to put the attack behind him, only telling his closest friends that Gacy had put a loaded gun in his mouth during a night of rape and torture at his ranch house on the outskirts of Chicago.

Miraculously, Merrill survived. Several months later, on Dec. 21, 1978, Gacy—a contractor who also performed as Pogo the Clown—was arrested and eventually charged with the murder of 33 young men. Gacy was executed by lethal injection in 1994. Now Merrill, 65, is ready to share his account of survival and has written a one-man show about his extraordinary life, The Save, at the Electric Lodge theater in Los Angeles. Performing the show is “cathartic,” he says. “I’m proud of my journey.”

Here is his story in his own words.  

I grew up in a big house in Evanston, Ill., with four older sisters. It was a beautiful home but a very unhappy place. Everything looked good from the outside. My dad, Jerome Holtzman, was a baseball writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, the quintessential cigar-chomping sportswriter. He invented “the Save” statistic, used when a relief pitcher maintains his team’s lead to win the game. He’s in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. 

My mother had a narcissistic personality. Nothing existed outside of how life affected her. Me and my sisters were walking on eggshells, always getting yelled at. No matter what I did, I was wrong. 

High school was an escape. My friends were great, and I had a boyfriend whom I loved very much. I got C’s and D’s, but teachers liked me. We did some drugs—it was the ’70s. I moved out of the house at 17 after I got into a fistfight with my father on Christmas Eve and ended up in my own studio apartment in downtown Chicago overlooking Rush Street for $165 a month. 

By 19, I was working in clubs. I wanted to be an actor but didn’t know how to go about that. I would go swimming at the YMCA, and one night, after a swim, I was walking home. 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.”

I had never gotten into anyone’s car before, but I had a sense that if he thought I was different from other people he’d picked up, then I should stick with it. He pulled over near the ramp of the Kennedy Expressway and asked if I’d ever done “poppers”—amyl nitrite. He pulled out this brown bottle, splashed some liquid on a rag and jammed it into my face. I passed out, and when I woke up, I was in handcuffs. I saw the exit for Cumberland on the expressway, near the airport, and the next thing I knew, we were outside his house. 

He told me to be quiet. A light from the back of the house hit him in the eyes and suddenly I realized how dangerous he was. I was a puny 19-year-old. I knew I couldn’t anger him. I just had to diffuse the situation and act like everything was okay. That’s the way I had survived as a kid—we learned to lie low during my parents’ rages.

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. 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. We’d been there for hours. Finally, I could tell he was tiring. All of a sudden he said, “I’ll take you home.”

He dropped me off not far from where he’d picked me up. It was around 5 in the morning. He gave me his phone number and said, “Maybe we’ll get together again sometime.” When I got home, I flushed the number down the toilet, then took a shower. I didn’t call the police—I didn’t know he was a killer at the time. I went to the Snowflake Diner and had scrambled eggs and a chocolate milkshake. I made a pact with myself that I was going to get past this. I wasn’t going to leave my happiness in that house. 

A few months later I 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. 

I read that he went to prison. I’d see his picture, and he was repulsive. The lurking thought has been, Did he stain me? Was I somehow stained? I needed a change. When the movie Fame came out, I went to see it, and I was like, “I’m out of here. I’m going to wear thrift-shop clothes and cry in acting class.” I moved to New York on my 21st birthday. I got into the NYU drama department. In 1986 a bunch of friends and I formed Naked Angels, an Off-Broadway troupe for actors and playwrights. Acting was therapeutic for me. You’re forced to express yourself, and there is some honesty that goes with that. Recognition and acceptance.  

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I’ve been in group therapy, but that was not about this. I had a boyfriend who had full-blown AIDS, and I joined a support group. I read about Oprah doing a show about forgiveness. There was a woman who had been raped, beaten and left for dead. She said if she didn’t forgive her attacker, she couldn’t get on with her life. I knew I had to do that—to somehow forgive Gacy. 

I also had to forgive my parents. I eventually repaired my relationship with them to some degree. My father would visit New York and say things like, “I know I wasn’t a good dad,” and I’d say, “Do you wanna talk about it?” And he’d say, “No!” You have to laugh. Twice a year my mother would come, and we’d go to Broadway shows and hit the town. Out of the house they were different people. It was only later on, when I was writing about my childhood for this show, that I realized I was saved by the lessons that I learned at home. They saved my life that night. Those lessons—having that radar—have stayed with me my entire life. 

Don’t get me wrong—I still face it. Our culture is obsessed with John Wayne Gacy. Years ago I was at the Haunted Hayride in Griffith Park in L.A. We turn a corner, and there’s a banner that says, “Macy’s Day Parade.” But the “M” was crossed out and replaced with a red “G,” and there’s clowns running around with axes and knives. It’s that fright factor. People love it, but I don’t find violence fun. I won’t go to those movies. The idea of watching someone being tied up . . . I can’t. When I get scared, I never cry—my emotions get locked. But when good things happen in movies, when someone gets what they want, the waterworks start. 

I’ve also found love. My husband and I have been together for 23 years. We have a rescue dog, Fred, and a hairless cat named Felix. A perfect American family. I’ve learned no one’s trauma is greater than anyone else’s. 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.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “TRUST” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.