The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/David Cram.md at ef6dbe44ac27b17a84cfa6a7a0182be09ecc243a - disinfozone/The_Info_Web

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Raw Blame History

Work for Gacy

Michael Rossi testified at the 1980 trial that he first met Cram in August 1976, when Cram was working on a PDM crew at a hot dog stand job. Rossi testified that Cram lived in Gacy's house for a month or two and then moved out, and that Rossi moved into the house around September 1976.² The writer S. Dovey wrote that Cram, then 20, began living with Gacy at the Norwood Park house in May 1976, that the house served as both a residence and a home office for the business, that Cram resided there on and off alongside another employee, Rossi, and that Cram worked for Gacy during a period when multiple young men associated with the company went missing.³ Terry Sullivan, who gave him the pseudonym Chris Gray, described him as a twenty-one-year-old high school dropout in December 1978 who had served a year in the army, met Gacy while hitchhiking, went to work for him in late 1976, and moved in shortly afterward at $25 a week.⁴ Cram was 22 at his February 1980 testimony and gave August 22, 1976 as his 19th birthday, a birth date of August 22, 1957, which would make him 18 in May 1976.⁵ A Chicago Police record for a David F. Cram gives a 1957 birth year.⁶

Cram and Rossi both worked on PDM crews. On December 12, 1978, a PDM worker told Des Plaines police that he had seen Gacy at a job site at about 2:30 p.m. that day, that Gacy was with Cram, and that the two stopped by the site for a short time before leaving.⁷

December 1978 police investigation

On December 13, 1978, Des Plaines police executed the first search warrant at Gacy's house. Cram testified at the 1980 trial that he was with Gacy after the police had executed that warrant. When they returned to the house, Gacy asked Cram to check the crawl space. Cram refused, so Gacy checked it himself and appeared "shook up about it."¹

The writer S. Dovey wrote that after the December 13 search Gacy went into the crawl space with a flashlight, and that Cram admitted digging trenches there but denied any knowledge of murders or bodies.³ Dovey also wrote that police placed both Cram and Rossi under surveillance from December 13, 1978, as potential accomplices.³ A December 1978 surveillance report records Cram in Gacy's company on more than one occasion, including a lunch at which Cram was with Gacy and a companion, and an occasion on which Cram was driving.⁸ The police evidence photography log lists a photograph of Cram's residence among the images taken during the investigation.⁹

On December 16, 1978, Cram gave an interview to Des Plaines police that ran until 1712 hours.¹⁰ In the interview Cram said Gacy told him he did work for a syndicate and had set people up before. Cram said he had no actual proof of this. He said Gacy kept about three wallets in the garage, containing identification that included a driver's license, a library card, a military identification, and school and college identification, one of them from De Vry Tech. Cram said that when he asked to use one of the identifications as proof of age, Gacy told him he did not want those, because they belonged to people who were deceased. Cram said he did not ask Gacy how he knew.¹⁰

On December 17, 1978, Rossi told police that Cram had telephoned him that morning, and that Gacy had asked Rossi whether he had called Cram in to work. Rossi also told police that the wallets found in Gacy's garage had also been found by Cram.¹¹

Sullivan's account of the employee he calls Chris Gray

Sullivan, who gave him the pseudonym Chris Gray, wrote that on December 13, 1978, he came to Gacy's house to return Gacy's truck during the search, looked into the crawl space, and remarked that Gacy had been having trouble with seepage.⁴ Sullivan described Des Plaines officers Pickell and Adams interviewing Gray on Saturday, December 16, 1978, first at the Aurora job site restaurant and then at the station from just after 2 p.m. The account has Gray saying Gacy claimed to work for the syndicate and had set up people before; that Gacy kept wallets of identification in the garage, one driver's license still valid, and that when Gray asked to use it to get into bars while underage Gacy told him he did not want those because they belonged to people who were deceased; and that Gacy gave him watches "from a dead person." These statements match the December 16 police interview of Cram, and Cram's 1980 testimony as reported under his own name matches Sullivan's account of Gray on the birthday handcuffs, the bedroom attack, the wallets, the syndicate confession and the Fifth Amendment.⁵¹² Gray signed a release for a police search of the PDM van, where an evidence technician found a tissue with fresh blood that Gray said was his own, and he said that on the night of the December 13 search Gacy went into the crawl space with a flashlight.¹²

On Wednesday, December 20, 1978, according to Sullivan, Gray rode with surveillance officers Schultz and Robinson and was questioned by officers Bedoe and Lang, who confronted him with his police record.¹³ Gray described a drinking session on his birthday at which Gacy handcuffed him and Gray kicked free, a threat by Gacy to kill him over a broken statue, Gacy coming to his bed at night, and his move out of the house afterward. He said he had been in the crawl space once spreading lime and once digging, that Gacy gave moisture and pipes as the reason, set stakes marking the trenches, and shouted at him to stay on the marked line when he veered; he drew a diagram of the sump pump and the trenches, which he put at a foot and a half to two feet wide and deep. Sullivan wrote that Lang told him police suspected the mounds were graves.¹³ Sullivan also wrote that Michael Rossi, whom he calls Dick Walsh, gave erratic and inconsistent responses on a polygraph administered by Joseph Kozenczak, who could render no definite opinion.¹⁴

Sullivan wrote that on Thursday, December 21, 1978, Gacy drove to Gray's house, where Rossi (Dick Walsh) was unloading tools from a car trunk; Gacy told them he had something to tell them, Rossi went in and came out saying Gacy was really upset, and Gray then drove Gacy to meet his attorney LeRoy Stevens at a restaurant on the Northwest Side. At a gas station Gray told officer Schultz that Gacy had been up all night and had told his lawyers he had killed over thirty people. Sullivan reports Gacy asking to visit his father's grave to say goodbye, and saying he feared he might kill himself and take Gray with him.¹⁵

Trial testimony, 1980

Cram testified at Gacy's trial in February 1980, on direct examination, cross-examination and redirect.² According to the Illinois Supreme Court's summary of his testimony, Gacy had him dig trenches in the crawl space, "purportedly for drainage purposes," and had him spread lime through the crawl space to cut its odor. Cram also testified that Gacy told him he had a degree in psychology, which he needed to manipulate people more easily.¹

Cram, 22, testified on February 12, 1980 that he dug drainage trenches for Gacy in late August 1977 and noticed several "small mounds" in the crawl space; prosecution statements, as reported, indicated Gacy had by then buried 11 of the 22 bodies identified and linked to him. Cram testified that on August 22, 1976, his 19th birthday, he went to Gacy's house and found Gacy in his clown outfit preparing for a hospital benefit; Gacy showed him puppets "and then he came up with his handcuff trick," put the cuffs on him, swung him around and "said he was going to rape me," and Cram ended it by kicking Gacy in the head. He testified that in September 1976 Gacy entered his room while he slept and "just pounced on me," tore his jeans, fought with him, then got up, smiled and said "You ain't no fun." Cram testified that in 1976 he found several wallets in the garage, asked whether he could use the identification cards to drink in bars, and Gacy told him he did not want those. Both Cram and Rossi testified that Gacy, despondent over a ten-day police surveillance, told them he had admitted to police involvement in the "syndicate" slayings of more than 30 youths. Asked whether he engaged in sexual activity with Gacy or Rossi, Cram refused to answer, citing the Fifth Amendment.⁵

Rossi testified that he helped dig trenches in the crawl space and supervised newer employees who dug there. He testified that Gacy was very sensitive about where the employees dug and placed markers to designate the areas.¹

Rossi testified that on December 21, 1978, he went to Cram's house to drop off some of Gacy's tools, and that Gacy arrived while he was there. Rossi testified that Gacy was emotional and nervous, and was in tears, and that Gacy said he had confessed to his lawyers the night before to more than 30 killings.¹⁶ Rossi testified that Gacy said he had been involved in "over 30 syndicate-related killings," and that Gacy told Cram the same thing, which Rossi believed.¹⁷

Sullivan described the prosecution as regarding Gray and Walsh as potentially the most damaging witnesses because of their involvement in the crawl space digging, with the defense expected to portray them as Gacy's accomplices. He wrote that Gray seemed fearful of being criminally linked with his former boss and pledged full cooperation, that Rossi's lawyer Edward V. Hanrahan sought immunity for Rossi, and that Judge Garippo overruled a defense objection to Gray testifying but allowed a brief defense interview first.¹⁸ Sullivan reports that Gray took the stand on Tuesday, February 12, 1980. He testified that Gacy kept drugs in several places in the drugstores the company remodeled, and that Gacy went into the crawl space wearing ankle-high black boots. Crouching in the well of the courtroom, Gray demonstrated to the jurors how he had dug trenches with thirty inches of headroom. He testified that on the morning of Gacy's arrest Gacy broke down and cried and said he had confessed to thirty killings, "syndicate-related killings," while swearing he had nothing to do with a particular missing boy. On cross-examination by defense counsel Motta, asked whether he had participated in sex with Gacy, Gray invoked the Fifth Amendment.¹⁹ Rossi, per Sullivan, testified that Gacy told him and Gray of over thirty killings, that he dug one trench between knee and hip depth and about a foot wide, refused to dig a second, and supervised others after Gacy marked locations with sticks.²⁰

Gacy's statements about Cram

The writer S. Dovey wrote that during his police interrogation on December 21, 1978, Gacy named Cram and Rossi as accomplices who had buried bodies in the crawl space of his house, and that Gacy said Cram had keys to the house and used it when Gacy was out of town.³ Dovey also wrote that Gacy said in 1992 interviews that Cram introduced Phillip Paske to him, and that Paske procured boys for sex and films.³ In a recording played publicly in April 1994, as the writer S. Dovey wrote it, Gacy said that twelve keys to his house had been distributed and that Rossi, Cram, Paske and John David Norman were involved in the case.³

Later records

The State's witness list in the Gacy case, filed April 25, 1979 under Indictment No. 79-69, names David Cram.²¹ A second supplemental list of witnesses filed for the defense also names David Cram.²²

A Chicago Police Department criminal history report for a David F. Cram, with a 1957 birth year, lists six arrests between 1978 and 2000, one of them a felony, and one conviction. The identification of this David F. Cram with the Gacy witness rests on name, Chicago residence and a 1957 birth year, the year implied by his 1980 testimony.⁶

Footnotes

People v. Gacy, 103 Ill. 2d 1 (1984), Illinois Supreme Court, No. 53212, decided June 6, 1984, testimony summaries of David Cram and Michael Rossi. https://static.case.law/ill-2d/103/cases/0001-01.json ↩︎
Testimony of David Cram and Michael Rossi, People v. Gacy, Circuit Court of Cook County, Indictment Nos. 79-69 et al., trial transcript, Volume 5 of 13, February 1980, index pages 757 to 936 (Cram) and 938 to 1064 (Rossi). https://archive.org/details/Gacy_trial (file "Rossi trial tty") ↩︎
S. Dovey, Eye of the Chickenhawk (2023), passages on Cram's residence, the December 13, 1978 search, Gacy's statements naming Cram, Rossi, Paske and Norman, and the keys to Gacy's house. ↩︎
Terry Sullivan with Peter T. Maiken, Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders (Grosset & Dunlap, 1983), p. 29 (the book states that the name Chris Gray has been changed) and pp. 61 to 65 (age, army service, move-in). ↩︎
United Press International, "Gacy had youths dig trenches under suburban home: Witness," Chicago, February 12, 1980, as printed in the Journal Gazette and Times-Courier (Mattoon, Illinois), February 13, 1980, p. 3 (photograph caption: David Cram leaves court after testifying). ↩︎
Chicago Police Department, Identification Section, Criminal History Report, David F. Cram. https://archive.org/details/criminal-history-report-cram-r-1 ↩︎
Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 5 of 6, interview report of a PDM employee, December 1978 (sighting of Gacy and Cram at a job site on December 12, 1978, about 2:30 p.m.). https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD ↩︎
Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 6 of 6, December 1978 surveillance report of Gacy's movements. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD ↩︎
Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 3 of 6, evidence photography log. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD ↩︎
Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 5 of 6, interview of David Cram, December 16, 1978, terminated at 1712 hours. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD ↩︎
Des Plaines Police Department, John Wayne Gacy investigation file, part 5 of 6, statement of Michael Rossi, December 17, 1978. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_DesPlainesPD ↩︎
Sullivan, Killer Clown, pp. 61 to 65, 63 and 64 (December 16, 1978 interview; syndicate, wallets, flashlight, van search). ↩︎
Sullivan, Killer Clown, pp. 128 to 133 (December 20, 1978 surveillance and questioning; crawl space diagram). ↩︎
Sullivan, Killer Clown, pp. 129 to 130 (polygraph of the employee he calls Dick Walsh). ↩︎
Sullivan, Killer Clown, pp. 140 to 141 (December 21, 1978). ↩︎
Testimony of Michael Rossi, People v. Gacy (1980), trial transcript Volume 5 of 13, as in note 2, on the December 21, 1978 visit to Cram's house. ↩︎
Testimony of Michael Rossi, People v. Gacy (1980), trial transcript Volume 5 of 13, as in note 2, on Gacy's statements about syndicate-related killings at Cram's house. ↩︎
Sullivan, Killer Clown, pp. 282 to 283 (pretrial positions on Gray and Walsh). ↩︎
Sullivan, Killer Clown, pp. 283 to 284 (Gray's testimony of February 12, 1980, trench demonstration, "syndicate-related killings", Fifth Amendment on cross-examination). ↩︎
Sullivan, Killer Clown, p. 285 (Walsh's testimony). ↩︎
Witness list, People v. Gacy, Indictment No. 79-69, filed April 25, 1979. https://archive.org/details/gacy-st.-witness.-list.-04.25.79 ↩︎
Second Supplemental List of Witnesses, defense, People v. Gacy, No. 79-69. https://archive.org/details/def.-2d.-suppl.-witness.-list ↩︎

16 KiB Raw Blame History