: Rignall’s testimony was a cornerstone of the prosecution's case, as he was one of the only living witnesses who could describe Gacy’s modus operandi in detail. PDF/Access

Jeffrey Rignall was the first known survivor of serial killer . His book,

Gacy was a well-known community figure, active in local politics and charity events, making police hesitant to believe he was a monster.

Because physical copies are scarce, surviving hardcovers of the original publication by Wellington Press regularly command prices ranging from $300 to over $600 on secondary marketplaces like AbeBooks and eBay.

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Understanding Jeffrey Rignall’s "29 Below": A Pioneering Memoir of Gacy Survival

For those unable to find the book, Rignall's story is extensively detailed in the Peacock docuseries which features interviews and archival footage regarding his survival and investigation.

The book had one main printing run of 5,000 copies in 1979.

His partner, Ron Wilder, later described the police's attitude: "The police assumed that Jeff’s encounter with Gacy was a consensual arrangement. They had no clue of how to treat a gay rape of any sort and did not even think that would be possible". Frustrated by what he felt was police inaction and determined to find his attacker, Rignall decided to take matters into his own hands.

Rignall awoke intermittently during the car ride to Gacy's home in the Norwood Park neighborhood, recognizing a few landmarks before being rendered unconscious again.

This bureaucratic failure enraged Rignall. Rather than accepting the status quo, he decided to hunt for his attacker himself.

The book has been out of print for decades. Original copies from the 1979 Wellington Press run are extremely scarce and often sell for hundreds of dollars on platforms like AbeBooks or Amazon .

, published in July 1979. It is a firsthand account of Rignall's survival of a brutal 1978 attack by serial killer John Wayne Gacy

The title 29 Below refers to the that investigators initially excavated from the crawl space beneath Gacy’s house (the final victim count was later confirmed to be 33). Published by Wellington Press, the book provides a raw, unfiltered perspective on the Gacy case before the trial ever began.

Rignall rented a car and spent days staking out the highway ramps leading out of Chicago, searching for the specific vehicle Gacy drove. Remarkably, he spotted it. He logged the license plate, traced the vehicle back to Gacy’s home, and presented the identity of his attacker to the police.