In 1994, journalist Nancy Rommelmann accompanied Rick Gaez, a 26-year-old pen pal of John Wayne Gacy, on a road trip from Los Angeles to Illinois, to visit the serial killer before his execution. Along the way, she took the moral temperature of people on college campuses, in bars, in churches, asking how they felt about Gacy and his being sentenced to death, for the torture and murder of 33 young men and teenage boys. Shackled in a tiny visiting room on death row, Gacy nevertheless turned on the charm. Chatty, slick, acting the father figure, albeit one who wants to know a little too much about your sex life, Gacy offered his hand and said, "Ask anything you want—I'm not ashamed of anything I've ever done."