Courtroom Artist John Michael Downs (1936-2019)
By Gustavo Azevedo
Sitting in the trial that would decide his fate and give justice to the families of his many victims, John Wayne Gacy was the center of attention. The notorious murderer, known as the “Killer Clown” for his habit of dressing in clown costume and makeup, grabbed onto a gaze in the crowded courtroom. He noticed a courtroom sketch artist analyzing him. Gacy was game, and so was 44-year-old John Michael Downs, an editorial illustrator from the Chicago Sun-Times.
Using cameras and other recording devices was — and often still is — prohibited in trials. That forces news organizations to hire fast-acting illustrators to immortalize events hidden from the public eye. [1]
In 1980, in the middle of the courtroom, a chilling staring contest began between the artist and the killer. Gacy managed to tune out all the other glances in the room that would decide his fate. It wasn’t the first time they had interacted.
One day during the trial, Downs had arrived early to secure a good spot. To his surprise, the bailiffs also brought Gacy in early. They struggled to turn Gacy towards the judge, but he insisted on turning and posing for Downs. In 1999, in an interview for the Chicago Reader, Downs said Gacy shot him a look that he told the reporter “gave him the creeps to this day.” [2]
The second staring contest continued, Gacy oddly giving attention to what should have been the least of his worries. He was charged with killing 33 young men and boys and hiding their bodies under his house.[3] The artist won the contest — Downs later told a friend that “Gacy broke eye contact first.” Ultimately, Gacy was found guilty and sentenced to death by lethal injection. [4]
Farm Boy in the Big City
“John Downs was a real, all-American dad in a way my father never was,” wrote Ezekiel J. Emanuel, brother of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in his memoir Brothers Emanuel. [5]
John Michael Downs, son of John F. Downs and Ruth Miller, was born on December 17th, 1936, in Tomah, Wisconsin. [6] After a 16-month illness, John F. Downs passed away in November 1937. [7] Never having known his father, Downs was raised by a working single mother and sometimes had to raise himself. He pitched in with odd jobs, including delivering newspapers, and according to his daughter, Ana Maria, he loved it.
Downs lived in Tomah until his late teens. He attended Tomah High School and participated in sketch club, football, and track. As a senior, he was elected “Snowball King” at the school’s winter dance.[8] He graduated in 1955 and was accepted into the School of the Art Institute in Chicago with a scholarship.
To help with college, Downs got a part-time job as a railroad trainman.[9] At the Art Institute, he was utterly displeased with the curriculum and anxious to find stability in a tumultuous profession. In the Chicago Reader interview, he said, “I loved to paint, but I knew that to make a living, you had to be able to do the commercial stuff.” [10]
In 1958, pressures from the school administration and an eagerness to leave the city pushed Downs to join two other friends on a road trip down Route 66. All three vowed to return to the school to finish their degrees, but on the trip, Downs fine-tuned his skills by capturing the diverse sceneries provided by America’s roads.
From Draftee To Military Artist
A month into the trip, with a worn-out-past-repair Jeep, the trio was forced to return to Chicago. Instead of going back to his studies, Downs was notified he had been drafted into the Vietnam War.
Once he reported for duty at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, he was greeted with a hug from Lady Luck. Colonel Vincent Hack, the officer in charge of the art department, was partial to men from Chicago, his hometown. Col. Hack saw the potential in Downs’ artistic skills and sent him to work at an Air Force training hospital in San Antonio.
There, he became a medical illustrator at the hospital, where he further honed his skills without going near Vietnam or combat. Medical illustrators must produce anatomically accurate drawings that can easily be visually explained. The work is used in classrooms, textbooks, or research papers as anatomical diagrams.[11] On the job, Downs took the opportunity to study human anatomy and apply it to his art.
In his free time, Downs taught classes in the community and held shows to display his work. As his bond with the community grew, Downs married San Antonian Maura Chavez on October 21, 1961, in her home town.[12]
His military superiors approved of his artistic endeavors, viewing them as an excellent way to foster military and community relations. Later in his enlistment, continuing to work in the Air Force’s art program, Downs traveled the world and painted.
Putting Down Chicago Roots
In 1962, Downs was done with his time in the Air Force and moved back to Chicago with Chavez, hoping to find work as an illustrator for news publications. With an interview at the Herald-American lined up, Downs first stopped at the Chicago Daily News on a whim, displayed some of his work and was hired on the spot.
On his first day as an editorial illustrator for the Daily News, Downs found himself at the Cook County Jail death chamber — one of only three places in the state that carried out executions. Anxious to know what he was about to witness, Downs sat still as they brought in the convicted man. He was charged with murdering his children and attempting to burn down his house to hide his sins. While he was being strapped into the electric chair, Downs realized that he should conquer his nerves and pay attention to the gory details. Holding those tightly in his mind, he had to return to the Daily News office and sketch the events as accurately as possible for the next day’s paper. Downs completed his first assignment and recalled years later that the Chicago Tribune reporter at the scene passed out. [13]
In the 1960s, Downs and Chavez had two sons and a daughter, Ana Maria, who was born in 1966. With the heart of a child himself, Downs was the magnet that brought the neighborhood kids together, including the three Emmanuel brothers, who lived downstairs.
“The neighborhood kids were all attracted to him because he was so fun-loving. He would get in there with us to play,” Ana Maria said. “All the kids knew him; whenever he would be out and playing with us, it would just attract a lot of kids.”
One memorable weekend, John and Maura hosted seven Boy Scouts and their scoutmaster, John’s brother, James, who brought the Wisconsin troop to town for a two-day tour of Chicago. The troop slept on the living room floor, to the delight of John’s co-workers, who reported the visit in the newspaper. [14]
Ezekiel Emanual recalls that Downs built a basketball hoop in the backyard at 907 Winona Street, and helped the kids set up wooden cart races (built with his help). It wasn’t surprising for him to show up at the front door of the Emanuel apartment and recruit the brothers for adventures in the country in his white Thunderbird. These voyages would usually consist of showing up to a farm unannounced and charming the farmer into showing them around. As city boys, the Emanuels loved seeing the farm animals. As a farm boy in the city, these trips were essential to Downs, who felt constrained in the city apartment in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.
In 1969, the art departments for the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times were right next to each other in the same building, and that’s where Downs first met Sun-Times editorial illustrator Bill Linden.
“I met him almost from day one in 1969 when I started there, and I just thought he was the greatest guy,” Linden said. “We were friends for 49 years before he passed away.”
Sketching Justice
The first big court case Downs covered was the trial of Richard Speck, charged with the mass murder that had shocked Chicago and the nation in 1966. At Speck’s April 1967 trial, newspapers reported that the “evidence against him was damning.” He was charged with the murder of nine women, eight nursing students and another local woman. Corazon Amurao, the sole survivor of the attack, hid under a bed in the Jeffrey Manor townhome where Speck killed the future nurses.[15] Downs captured the moment Amurao stepped down from the witness stand, pointed at Speck, who had murdered her friends before her eyes and said: “This is the man.” [16]
The Conspiracy 8 Becomes the Chicago 7
One of the most infamous trials in American history began in September 1969. Downs was assigned to it as courtroom sketch artist, and the trial left a bitter taste.
In the summer of 1968, more than 10,000 activists came to Chicago during the Democratic National Convention to protest the Vietnam War. Originally meant to be nonviolent gatherings, the marches turned into chaos when protestors were met with Chicago Police Department and National Guard officers armed with anti-riot gear. The federal government charged eight leaders of nationally-recognized anti-war organizations with crimes including inciting the riot that came to be known as “The Battle of Michigan Avenue.”
The eight defendants were charged with conspiracy, even though they had come separately to Chicago and represented a diverse range of activist organizations. Bobby Seale, from Oakland, California, was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, and early in the trial, his attorney was hospitalized. He tried to represent himself during the lawyer’s absence, but Judge Julius Hoffman refused to allow it, ruling that the attorney representing the other defendants could also represent him. Seale repeatedly objected to the ruling, and Hoffman had him gagged and bound to his chair, charging him with 16 counts of contempt of court.
The group had been dubbed the “Conspiracy Eight,” but it was renamed “the Chicago Seven” when Seale’s case was separated from the others. In the end, the seven were convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots and sentenced to five years in prison, and Hoffman gave Seale a total of four years for contempt of court, three months for each of the 16 charges.
The case is judged to be one of the most unjust trials in American history, and an appellate court eventually threw out all the convictions, recognizing the bias Judge Hoffman displayed against the defendants. [17]
This trial changed and reshaped Downs’ view of the world. He started to see more of its flaws.
“Our friend and former neighbor, the newspaperman John Downs, covered the trial,” Ezekiel Emanuel wrote in his memoir. “[He] considered it such a travesty of justice that he was finally won over to my mother’s critique of the American political system.” [18]
Lighter Hues
Even while covering a trial, Downs remained on tap as an illustrator for other stories. Many of his peers, including Bill Linden, praised his drawing ability. He aided the art staff, who were looking for inspiration and writers, looking for diagrams or exciting stories.
Tom Frisbie, a Sun-Times writer, was quoted in Downs’ obituary saying: “When I was stumped trying to come up with something, I would go to John Downs, and he would say ‘I’ll have a sketch in five minutes.’ ”
A column by Chicago Daily News editor Roy M. Fisher profiling Downs during the Speck trial reads: “Back at his drawing table, Downs’ pencil ‘developed’ the picture as a photographer would his film.” [19]
Settling In, At Work and At Home
In 1978, a year before Gacy’s trial, the Chicago Daily News closed its doors for good around the same time Downs and his family settled in a new home at 1411 West Jarvis in Rogers Park. Not unemployed for long, Downs immediately found a job next door, at the art department for the Chicago Sun-Times. He would remain there until retirement, and remain in Rogers Park for the rest of his life.
Despite all the waiting and sitting involved in courtroom reporting, Downs enjoyed it. His daughter, Ana Maria Downs said, “Many artists and journalists don’t like to go (to court) because there’s a lot of downtime where you’re just sitting, waiting. But he didn’t seem to mind.”
Downs believed artists could capture the courtroom better than any photographer. “I can visualize myself anywhere in the courtroom,” he said in the Roy Fisher column. “I can be on the ceiling looking down or on the floor looking up. A photographer, even if he could get into the courtroom, wouldn’t have the same kind of freedom.”
And not all his cases involved murder or monotony. In 1984, he sketched Michael Jackson on the stand when his song “The Girl Is Mine” was under fire. The lawsuit claimed that Jackson had plagiarized the hit. Jackson hummed, drummed, and sang multiple parts of the song to defend his reputation while on the stand. To further prove his point, Jackson brought in his interior decorator to testify that she heard Jackson humming the tune before the alleged “original” arrangement had been released.[20]
As much as art was his job, Downs never saw it as work. Notoriously a child at heart with cravings for pranks and constant humor, Downs had fun with fellow illustrators at the Sun-Times. Not a “conflict-oriented person,” according to his daughter, Downs aced at gift-giving. He would draw custom birthday cards filled with inside jokes, and once, he gifted a coworker a single potato as a birthday present, with a note that read, “Bake Me.” [21]
When asked what he liked the most about Downs, Bill Linden immediately answered, “His sense of humor; he made me laugh every day.”
Downs looked at his time in courtrooms the same way he did in the military, as practice. His ability and quickness weren’t necessarily innate — his imagination is a different story — but he spent much of his life surrounding himself with art. It became a part of his life.
While a medical illustrator, Downs participated in drills in which he applied makeup to a soldier to depict symptoms for the medics-in-training. For the exercise to work, the makeup had to accurately represent what one might see on the field. Later in civilian life, this practice came in very handy.
“Halloween was, you know, a lot different than other kids,” Ana Maria said. “The paint had to be accurate. The vampires were terrifying-looking.”
Downs would also dive into the kids’ school projects and take them over. It would start with a simple color suggestion and end with him handling the markers, completely hijacking the new canvas. His love for art also seeped into his children. Ana Maria recalls confusing a grade school art teacher when she explicitly asked for “aubergine” (a dark purple with undertones of red) to finish her work.
Retirement and Redirection
“I remember asking him once, ‘Dad, do you ever run out of things to draw?’” Ana Maria said. “And I remember him looking at me, not with disdain, but with utter shock. He just shook his head. ‘No, I’ve never had that problem.’”
Even in 1994, when Downs retired from the Sun-Times, he had yet to meet this foe. He moved to a condo at 1205 Sherwin Avenue, still in Rogers Park. With his newfound free time, Downs continued to paint and sketch constantly. Downs lets us peek into his routine in the 1999 Chicago Reader interview: “I work every day. Sometimes, I get up in the middle of the night and start drawing.” [22]
“He was then free to work his art,” Ana Maria said. “He wasn’t obligated to paint or draw what other people told him.”
Downs continued painting for the remainder of his life. In 2019, at 82 years old, John M. Downs died of lymphoma.[23]
In the end, Ana Maria best explains the joy her father experienced in living every artist’s dream.
“He was fortunate. He got this phenomenal job with the newspapers that allowed him to have a regular job with actual benefits. He could raise a family, send us all to school, and still, you know, be able to have his art.”
Sources
[1] Why we still need courtroom sketch artists by Dean Peterson, October 6, 2017
[2] Rogues Gallery – A Newspaper Illustrator’s Career in Pictures by Paul Turner, Chicago Reader, September 19, 1999
[3] John Wayne Gacy by Biography.com Editors and Colin McEvoy | Updated: Jun. 16, 2023
[4] Artist John M. Downs, a witness to history in a long career with Sun-Times, Daily News, has died by Maureen O’Donnell, October 30, 2019.
[5] Brothers Emanuel – A Memoir of an American Family, p. 67, by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, March 26, 2013.
[6] Chicago and North Western Railroad Employment Record, John Michael Downs, Trainman, hired June 21, 1956.
[7] “Funeral Held For J. F. Downs, Tomah,” p. 8, by The La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wisconsin), November 23, 1937.
[8] John Downs Senior Class Yearbook, Tomah High School | 1955.
[9] Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Employee Record, John Michael Downs, previously cited.
[10] Rogues Gallery,” Chicago Reader, 1999, previously cited.
[11]Learn About It by the Association of Medical Illustrators.
[12]“Nuptial Pair At San Antonio,” p. 5, The La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wisconsin), October 24, 1961.
[13]”Rogues Gallery,” Chicago Reader, 1999, previously cited.
[14]“Kids Camping in Winona Apartment,” Chicago Daily News, June 13, 1962
[15]Chicago History Museum – The First Mass Murderer: Richard Speck in Chicago, by Jojo Galvan, July 13, 2023.
[16] “Defense Fighting to Shake Survivor’s Tale of Horror,” Chicago Daily News, April 6, 1967, page 1, drawing by John Downs.
[17]Chicago History Museum – The Chicago 7 Trial, by Jojo Galvan, September 23, 2022.
[18] Brothers Emanuel – A Memoir of an American Family, p. 174, by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, March 26, 2013.
[19]“John Downs: Artist with a Reporter’s Eye,” by Roy M. Fisher, Chicago Daily News, April 8, 1967.
[20]“Michael Jackson sings, testifies in court,” by Pamela J. Sherrod, UPI Archives, December 6, 1984.
[21] Artist John M. Downs Obituary, by Maureen O’Donnell, October 30, 2019, previously cited.
[22] Rogues Gallery,” Chicago Reader, 1999, previously cited.
[23] Artist John M. Downs Obituary, by Maureen O’Donnell, October 30, 2019, previously cited.
About the Author: Gustavo Azevedo
Gustavo Azevedo, a student intern with RPWHS, loves telling stories, and during his internship, he is eager to spotlight some of the more noted residents of Rogers Park. He moved to the United States from Brazil in 2013 and to Rogers Park in 2022 after a year abroad. Gustavo is a Multimedia Journalism major at Loyola University Chicago. He loves films, games, and photography, After graduation in December 2024, he hopes to work in video production.