JOLIET, Ill. -- The U.S. Supreme Court late Monday extinguished serial killer John Wayne Gacy's last hope of avoiding an execution by lethal injection set for early today.
Earlier Monday, a panel of federal judges rejected appeals from Gacy's lawyers.
"All of his appeals are exhausted," said Al Manning of the Illinois attorney general's office.
"That's good news," said Dolores Nieder, whose son was killed in 1977. "It's been a long, long 17 years."
Gacy, 52, was convicted in 1980 of murdering 33 young men and boys in Chicago during the 1970s. A building contractor and sometime clown, Gacy lured neighborhood teens with promises of jobs or picked up prostitutes.
He would shackle the boys, sexually assault them and strangle them over the course of hours or days. Most of the bodies were buried under Gacy's house near O'Hare International Airport. Nine victims never were identified.
Monday's Supreme Court action ended a 14-year legal battle by Gacy's lawyers that culminated this week with his lawyers losing four suits in four separate courts.
The three-judge federal appeals court in Chicago rejected a request for a new hearing on lawyers' claims Gacy was out of town when three of the 33 boys disappeared.
Late Monday, Gacy's lawyers got permission from the Illinois Supreme Court to stay with Gacy until the execution.
Gacy said he wouldn't write anything in his final hours to sell later because "he already made lots of money for his family," said Nic Howell, Illinois Corrections Department.
"He didn't talk about the victims' families, except to say killing him isn't going to bring them back," Howell said. Then "he slapped me on the shoulder and said, 'See ya.' "
A separate room at Stateville Correctional Center was set aside for the families of Gacy's victims - barred from the execution chamber - while waiting for word of his death.
"We've been waiting for this for 14 years, and when it's over with it will be a relief," said Harold Piest, father of Gacy's last victim, Robert Piest.
Gacy was flown by helicopter early Monday to Stateville from Menard Correctional Center near Chester.
He spent the day meeting with several friends, relatives and lawyers. Late Monday he ate his last meal of fried chicken, butterfly shrimp, strawberries and a six-pack of diet cola.
Afterward, a Roman Catholic priest said Mass in his cell.
At 10 p.m., he was to be offered a sedative. Two hours later he was to be wheeled into the chamber on a gurney.
An IV will deliver three drugs at one minute intervals. First, sodium pentothal that will anesthetize him, then pancuronium bromide to stop his breathing, and finally potassium chloride to stop his heart. The execution is expected to take 15 minutes.
Outside the penitentiary, opponents of the death penalty held a silent, candlelight vigil.
Earlier Monday, about 200 people participated in a rally in downtown Chicago led by local radio host Don Wade.
Wade led the crowd in singing "Goodbye, Gacy" to the tune of Hello, Dolly.
At the rally were Frank and Marilyn Chisesi. Their son, Vincent, now 32 and a city paramedic, had been offered a job by Gacy 16 years ago, but he never took the job. "We came down here to celebrate justice," Frank Chisesi said. "This is putrid, what he did."
