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word. He was not a troubled kid. He was not a runaway. He was a good, responsible, conscientious young man who had a great relationship with a loving, caring, attentive family. After calling all of Rob’s closest friends and acquaintances, calling Nisson Pharmacy and speaking with Phil Torf and obtaining John Gacy’s home number, after personally calling John Gacy’s house and talking to an answering machine, Harold Piest, together with his wife, Elizabeth, and their children, Ken and Kerry, decided it was time to go to the police. The family did not want to admit it, but they all knew something was very wrong.
    Missing person reports had always been considered routine by police departments all across the country. In many cases, it was stated policy to wait twenty-four hours before even beginning the concerted process that went into a lengthy and expensive search. This was not because the police departments, and their collective members, did not care deeply about each missing person reported. It was because so often, frankly, in most cases, the reported missing person would turn up in short order with some lame and embarrassing excuse concerning where they were, or, particularly in the case of teenagers, the missing person had voluntarily, purposefully left home, the typical runaway. Therefore, it was often a tall hurdle for the family of a missing person to impress upon a specific desk sergeant or watch commander that their “missing” person was somehow different from all of the other “missing” persons.
    This was not a problem for the members of the Piest family, however. When the four remaining members of the Harold Piest family walked into the Des Plaines Police Department sometime just before 11:00 p.m., united in their purpose and solidified in their resolve, they were a force of nature. They first spoke to the watch officer, George Konieczny.
    Although Officer Konieczny explained that at that hour all he could do was take down the information regarding Rob’s disappearance and move it through the system—and he advised the Piest family that they should go home and wait for a call from the detective in charge of the case—he was inspired by the obvious concern that was evident on the part of the family. He finished his report at 11:50 p.m. and added a personal note to the report, which emphasized the concern and believability of the family with whom he had met. He had his watch commander sign off on the report and immediately transmitted the pertinent information contained therein to the radio room. The statistical information contained in the City of Des Plaines Police Department case report #78-35203 concerning Robert Jerome Piest, male, Caucasian, age fifteen, slender to medium build, brownhair, brown eyes, tan Levi’s jeans, white T-shirt, brown suede shoes, light blue nylon parka, last seen in the area of 1920 Touhy Avenue, Des Plaines, was sent out to every Illinois jurisdiction over LEADS (Law Enforcement Agencies Data System) within two hours.
    The Piest family left the police station and drove the short distance to the family home. They were beside themselves with worry. They had no intention of waiting for word from some unnamed, yet-to-be–assigned-to-the-case detective. They immediately split up into a makeshift search party using the two family German shepherds to assist them. Harold, Ken, and Kerry spent the entire night searching every dark corner of the city of Des Plaines and the immediate surrounding area while Elizabeth stared at the silent telephone, waiting for it to ring, and wept. If Rob was hurt and in some bushes or in a forest preserve somewhere, they were going to find him. They could not sit idly by while the wheels of the government bureaucracy slowly churned.
    At 8:30 a.m., the exhausted, sleep-deprived troop trudged back into the Des Plaines Police Department. They asked the officer at the front desk if they could see the youth officer assigned to the case. At least they could