Northwest Indiana News: nwitimes.com

As far back as 1983, convicted killer David Edward Maust had aroused suspicion in Illinois authorities that he was a "Gacy type," a reference to the infamous Chicago-area man who killed 33 young boys and men and entombed them in his home.

Maust, then 28, was in the process of being extradited to Illinois from Texas to face a murder charge when Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Clifford Johnson noted on his Jan. 17, 1983, extradition paperwork that Maust was a "bad guy" and a "Gacey (sic) type."

John Wayne Gacy, one of the nation's deadliest serial killers, was arrested in 1979 for his murders and executed in 1994.

This week, police in Hammond recovered the bodies of three young men from a home at 4933 Ash Ave., where Maust was living as a rental tenant since his 2002 release from parole in Illinois.

Police at the scene Thursday said the third body is likely the last from that location. The push now will move to examine sites where Maust has lived since he was released on parole from the Illinois Department of Corrections in 1999, Hammond police said.

Records from Cook County show Maust, now 49, was living in Wood Dale, Ill., just west of O'Hare International Airport, when he stabbed Donald Jones, 15, of Chicago, and left his body in a quarry belonging to the Chicago Gravel Co., about a mile south of Elgin.

At Maust's May 6, 1994, sentencing following his conviction for Jones' murder, Roger Jones, a brother of the victim, pleaded with Cook County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Gaughan, "Please don't let him out to hurt any other kid again."

Edna Jones, the victim's mother, told the judge, "We would like the death penalty, so this man could never kill again."

Gaughan sentenced Maust to 35 years in prison, and he gave him credit for nearly 11 years he already had spent behind bars. He was paroled in 1999 and released from parole in 2002.

Jones lived in the 7600 block of North Bosworth Avenue, and published reports indicate Maust once lived in the 7400 block of North Greenview Avenue, one block west of Bosworth.

Jailhouse confession

Immediately following the Aug. 9, 1981, murder, Maust moved to Texas, and in December 1981 was sent to prison for five years for causing serious bodily injury to a child.

Michael Viesca, of the Texas Department of Public Safety, confirmed Maust was in the department's system from 1981 until he was extradited to Illinois. He allegedly had boasted of the Chicago area murder to inmates in Texas.

While in custody in Galveston County, Texas, Maust was mopping a floor as part of a so-called "bucket brigade" when Cook County Sheriff's Police Detectives William Behrens and Phillip Bettiker walked in.

"I've been expecting you," he told the pair.

He was put in an interrogation room, fed a hamburger, fries and a Coke, and told Behrens and Bettiker he had committed the Elgin murder, but he then refused to sign a statement to that effect.

"I agreed to tell you about this," Maust said, according to a July 22, 1986, deposition of Behrens and Bettiker. "I didn't agree to sign a statement."

An Illinois appeals court denied a motion by Maust's defense attorneys to suppress statements made to the detectives, as well as ones he made to the deputies transporting him back to Illinois confessing to two additional murders to the point of naming his victims.

"There were several murder cases he said he wanted to talk about," said Investigator Joseph Curtin, who turned in a report of his conversation, in which he said he gave Maust a standard warning against self-incrimination before listening to him. "It was unusual," the detective said.

Psychotic or sane?

In June 1985, a determination was made that Maust was mentally unfit to stand trial.

An Aug. 15, 1986, report from Dr. Matthew Marcos, of The Psychiatric Institute of the Circuit Court of Cook County, concluded that Maust "has a very long and significant mental history with multiple suicide attempts and homicidal activities. ... He has a pathological preoccupation with death, mutilation, dying and other bizarre ideations. He is currently unstable and unpredictable and runs a high suicidal, homicidal risk."

This was followed by a Nov. 21, 1986, report from Dr. Robert Reifman, director of The Psychiatric Institute, in which he said Maust suffered from "atypical psychosis which renders him unable to assist his counsel in his own defense. His fitness is prevented by his being a serious suicidal risk and by his tendency to be fragmented under stress. He is unlikely to recover his fitness in the future."

The fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual defines atypical psychosis as a nonspecified psychotic disorder.

By March 30, 1987, Reifman was writing the court that "this defendant ... is now mentally FIT for trial. He understands the nature of the charges. It is also my opinion that he was legally SANE at the time of the crime."

What caused such a dramatic turnaround in fewer than six months? Conflicting reports from various psychiatrists who examined Maust resulted in a finding from a Chicago psychiatrist that he was shamming, and was "a malingerer and a liar and a manipulator" who was seen laughing at the psychiatrists behind their backs.

Sister Josephine Migliare, who counseled Maust as a Catholic chaplain in Cook County, agreed that he "is far from being mentally ill. He is intelligent, soft-spoken and noncombative," she said in a Dec. 10, 1992, letter on Maust's behalf.

"He has helped many young inmates who had backgrounds similar to his. I know that David has spent enough time in the system and is ready to spend the future helping youth with addiction tendencies."

Because psychiatric records are confidential, those were pulled from Maust's court file, but in the deposition defense attorneys make reference to "his illness (being) recognized from the time he was about nine years old and institutionalized, possibly earlier" and that his psychological problems resulted "in a history of self-mutilation and self-loathing."

At one time, the attorney said, Maust attempted suicide by shoving a pencil into his chest. However, psychiatrists were not unanimous in agreeing Maust posed any threat to himself. "If he was truly suicidal," one wrote, "he would be dead by now."

Mark Kiesling can be reached at markk@nwitimes.com or (219) 662-5330.

ADVERTISEMENTS