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a plot to defeat him in his campaign for the presidency of the Jaycees. Miller was the son of a man who was prominent in state politics and was previously thought to be unfriendly to Gacy.
    Incredibly, Gacy was still thought by some to have a good chance of winning the club presidency after his arrest. He had never before been in trouble with the law for anything more serious than a traffic ticket and he certainly didn't fit the popular image of a homosexual. It was hard to believe that the burly fellow who boasted of his appeal to women was not sexually straight.
    He insisted that he was being framed and had been set up to keep him from leading the Jaycees. He remained in contention for the presidency right up to the late May election meeting in the Isaac Walton League Clubhouse in the nearby town of Washburn.
    Hill recalled that his friend waited until he was nominated to face Burk for the presidency. Then he stood up and, in an emotion-filled voice, announced that he was withdrawing "in the interests of the organization and my family."
    "I think he didn't withdraw sooner because he always liked a contest, a race," Hill surmised. "And he always felt the charges would be dropped, that he would be cleared of that thing." Hill believed that Gacy would have easily walked off with the election if he hadn't gotten into trouble.
    Burk became the new president and responded by describing the Waterloo Jaycees as one of the leading chapters in Iowa, and announcing that the local unit would host the next state convention. The new officers were dedicating themselves to attracting new members and to keeping those who were already active, he added.
    Gacy was an exception to the effort to retain existing members. At the July meeting, Gacy was one of four Jaycees, including Burk, who received Key Man awards. But his troubles were burgeoning and bringing unwelcome publicity to the service club. Even Pottinger had to admit that the sexual nature of the charges made them especially difficult to contend with. "If he'd been caught embezzling, nobody would have said anything," he observed. Unfortunately, Gacy was accused of seducing or otherwise inducing one or more of the community's sons to commit homosexual acts. That was an offense that even the friendly and charitable people of Black Hawk County found difficult to tolerate.
    "And of course," said David Dutton, the first assistant county attorney who was selected to spearhead prosecution of the case, "it wasn't just one incident. It was going on for some time, a few months before it was brought to our attention."
    There was more trouble on the way, and it would become increasingly difficult for Gacy's friends to maintain their faith in him. In September, approximately four months after his initial arrest, Gacy's friends were dismayed to learn that new charges had been filed accusing him of hiring an eighteen-year-old boy to beat up Miller.
    Filed by Black Hawk County Attorney Roger Peterson, the new charges accused Gacy of going armed with intent, malicious threats to extort, and attempting to suborn perjury.
    He was freed from custody after posting a one-thousand-dollar cash bond in Black Hawk County District Court.
    Still dazed over the newest charges, Gacy's friends were further distressed three days later when an additional count of breaking and entering was filed against him. This time he was accused of breaking into the Brown Lumber Company in Raymond, a town about five or six miles east of Waterloo along U.S. Road 20, while he was free on bail on the sodomy charges.
    Gacy went to jail, and when he couldn't raise bail, he was kept there. The burglary charge was apparently unrelated to the sodomy offense and stemmed from an incident involving his work in a merchant security operation. The job gave him a perfect excuse to outfit his station wagon with spotlights and to play policeman. The trouble at the lumberyard was not nearly as disturbing to Gacy's friends as the other alleged