“Law & Order” actor Jack Merrill survived being kidnapped and raped by serial killer John Wayne Gacy at the age of 19

In 1978, Jack Merrill reluctantly entered the home of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Unlike dozens of Gacy’s other victims, he left the house alive.

Merrill, who was 19 at the time of the kidnapping and rape, has since become an actor and has played small roles in several television series, including “Law & Order” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Now he’s starring in his own story, having written a one-man show he’ll perform called “The Save,” which details that terrible night with Gacy.

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“When I was 19 years old, I was kidnapped and raped by a mass murderer. One that is burned into the American consciousness. John Wayne Gacy,” he told People magazine. “Yes, that guy from Chicago who dressed up as a clown and murdered 33 boys and young men under his house and garage and who authorities believe killed even more.”

The son of a respected Chicago Sun-Times sportswriter, Merrill says he grew up in a turbulent household as the youngest of five children.

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“When I was 19, I was working in clubs,” he explained. “I wanted to be an actor but didn’t know how to go about it. I went swimming at the YMCA and one evening I was walking home after swimming. A guy stopped and said, ‘Do you want a ride?'”

“I thought I would walk around the block a few times, but he started driving fast and turned into a really bad neighborhood. He said, ‘Lock your door.’ It’s dangerous.’ I said they kept it out of the papers because it was bad for business on nearby Rush Street, and he said, “How do you know?” You’re smart. You’re not like those other kids.’”

“I had never gotten into someone’s car before, but I felt like I should stick around if he thought I was different to the other people he had picked up. He stopped near the Kennedy Expressway on-ramp and asked if I had ever eaten “poppers” – amyl nitrite. He pulled out this brown bottle, squirted some liquid onto a rag and shoved it in my face. I passed out and when I woke up I was handcuffed.”

Shortly after, he arrived at Gacy’s now infamous home. “He told me to be quiet,” Merrill said. “A light from the back of the house hit him in the eyes and suddenly I realized how dangerous he was.”

“I knew he was crazy and I knew I couldn’t fight him. And I knew I couldn’t upset him. And I just had to defuse the situation, defuse the situation. Pretend everything is always fine. Because I grew up with it. I’ve done it my whole life.”

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Merrill remembers thinking that if he fought Macy, he wouldn’t survive. “I didn’t, didn’t fight him. . . I was 19 years old and a skinny little kid. . . I had learned skills that I could use so I wouldn’t fail.”

The 65-year-old remembers that the house was “dark” and that he “felt like it was a trap.”

“He asked if I trusted him and I said I did, so he took the handcuffs off. There was a bar in the middle of the house. We were drinking beer and he had this strong potpourri and then he put the handcuffs back on me and dragged me down the hall. He put this homemade device around my neck. It had ropes and pulleys and it ran around my back and through my handcuffed hands in such a way that if I resisted I would suffocate,” he explained.

“At one point I did that and started to deflate. He put a gun in my mouth. Then he raped me in the bedroom. I knew if I fought him I wouldn’t have much of a chance. I never freaked out or screamed. In a way I felt sorry for him too, like he didn’t necessarily want to do what he was doing but he couldn’t stop. We had been there for hours. I finally noticed that he was tired. Suddenly he said, ‘I’m taking you home.'”

“If this had happened to me and it hadn’t happened [Gacy]no one would care. It’s interesting for me to think about it. Because there are a lot of other people that bad things happen to,” he explained. “You have no interest in me. They are interested in it [Gacy]. And I know that, and that’s fine, but that’s a strange thing in our society.”

Merrill says Gacy dropped him off around 5 a.m. near where they first met. “He gave me his phone number and said, ‘Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.’ When I got home I flushed the number down the toilet and then took a shower. I didn’t call the police – I didn’t know he was a murderer at the time.”

Merrill says he initially tried to tell this story years ago but was dissuaded by a film executive. Merrill remembers the person asking him, “This is how you want to be remembered?”

That stalled the process of telling his story, but didn’t kill it.

“That is one of my big messages [one-man]The show is that I’m not a victim. Something happened to me. It was one night, and I made a pact with myself at the time that he would control me for one night, but he wouldn’t control my life,” Merrill said. “He wouldn’t be the determining factor in my life. . . . This trauma would not dictate my life.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org