Grey’s Anatomy actor Jack Merrill has recounted his harrowing experience of being a victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy for the first time.

Merrill, 65, who also starred in Law & Order, was drugged and raped by Gacy at gunpoint in his home outside of Chicago when he was aged 19 in 1978.

Gacy was convicted of murdering 33 young men and boys between 1972 and 1978, burying most of them under his house. He was executed by lethal injection in 1994.

Merrill wrote in People he was approached by Gacy after he finished a swimming lesson at the YMCA. Gacy, who was not known to Merrill, asked if he wanted a lift and he accepted the offer.

‘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,’ Merrill said.

The actor said Gacy asked if he had done poppers before ‘jamming’ the drugs into Merrill’s face knocking him unconscious. ‘I passed out, and when I woke up, I was in handcuffs,’ he said.

Merrill was then instructed by Gacy to ‘be quiet’ as they entered Gacy’s home. At this point, Merrill said, he suddenly became aware his life was in jeopardy.

He recalled: ‘A light from the back of the house hit him in the eyes and suddenly I realised 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.’

Inside Gacy’s ‘dark’ home, Merrill said the murderer asked if he trusted him and when he replied in the affirmative he took his handcuffs off. They both then drank beer and smoked ‘strong pot.’

Merrill continued: ‘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.’

Merrill added: ‘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.’

After ‘hours’ of being abused, Merrill said Gacy was ‘tiring’ and all of a sudden announced he would take the actor home and dropped him off near the YMCA.

Gacy also gave Merrill his number as he wanted to ‘get together again sometime’.Merrill said when he returned home he flushed the number down the toilet and had a shower.

Merrill continued: ‘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.’

The actor said he realised Gacy was a killer months later after reading an article in the Chicago Sun-Times. He said it brought up ‘lurking thoughts’ that Gacy had ‘stained’ him.

Merrill said: ‘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.’

Merrill said that until recently he had only told his close friends about Gacy. He has now written a one-man show about his ordeal and life called The Save, which is running at the Electric Lodge in Los Angeles from October 24 to November 3.

He said: ‘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.’

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