In 1978, Jack Merrill unwittingly 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 when the kidnapping and rape occurred, has since become an actor, appearing in small roles on 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 chronicles that horrific night with Gacy.

JOHN WAYNE GACY’S LAWYER ‘WANTED TO LOOK EVIL IN THE EYES’, BELIEVES AT LEAST TWENTY VICTIMS

Actor Jack Merrill has played small roles in several television series, including ‘Law & Order’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, ‘Games People Play’ and ‘Steve the Intern’. (Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)

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

The son of a respected sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times, Merrill grew up in a tumultuous household, the youngest of five children.

John Wayne Gacy poses for standard photos at the Des Plaines Police Department. (Des Plaines Police Department/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

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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, after swimming, I was walking home. A man stopped and said, ‘Would you like to take a ride? to make?

“I thought I was going to go around the block a few times, but he started driving fast and ended up in a really bad area. He said, ‘Lock your door. It’s dangerous.’ I said they kept that out of the papers because it was bad for business on nearby Rush Street, and he said, ‘How do you know that, huh? You’re not like those other kids.’

“I’d never gotten into someone’s car before, but I felt like if he thought I was different from the other people he’d picked up, I should stick with it. He stopped at the Kennedy Expressway on-ramp and asked: If I had ever done ‘poppers’ – amyl nitrite. He took out this brown bottle, splashed some liquid on a cloth and stuck it in my face, and when I woke up I was in handcuffs.

Backyard structures and the front and backyard of John Wayne Gacy’s home were completely destroyed as a result of the investigation. (Walter Kale/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

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 eye 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 make him angry. And I just had to diffuse the situation, diffuse the situation. Pretend everything was always fine. Because that’s what I grew up with, I’ve done it all my life.”

Jack Merrill remembers being drugged in John Wayne Gacy’s car. (Greg Doherty/Getty Images)

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

Now 65, he remembers the house being “dark” and he “felt it was a trap.”

“He asked if I trusted him, and I said I did, so he took off the handcuffs. There was a bar in the middle of the house. We drank beer, and he had a strong pot, and then he did the handcuffs back. He pulled me down the hall and put a homemade thing around my neck. It had ropes and pulleys, and it went around my back and through my cuffed hands so that if I struggled, I would choke,” he explained.

“I knew he was crazy and I knew I couldn’t fight him.”

– Jack Merrill

Jack Merrill believes people wouldn’t care if the same attack had happened to him but not been committed by John Wayne Gacy. (J. Vespa/WireImage/Getty Images)

“At one point I did that and started losing air. He put a gun in my mouth. Then he raped me in the bedroom. I knew if I fought him I didn’t stand much of a chance. I never panicked or I shouted. I felt sorry for him too in a way, like he didn’t really want to do what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop. We’d been there for hours. Suddenly he said, ‘I’m taking you home.’ “

“If this had happened to me and it didn’t (Gacy), no one would care. That’s interesting for me to think about. Because there are a lot of other people that bad things happen to,” he said. “They’re not interested in me. They’re interested in (Gacy). And I know that, and that’s fine, but that’s a weird thing about our society.”

John Wayne Gacy in mugshots taken in 1978. (Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images)

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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 get together again someday.’ When I got home, I flushed the song 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 discouraged by a film executive. Merrill remembers the person asking him, “Is that how you want to be remembered?”

“If this had happened to me and it didn’t (Gacy), no one would care.”

– Jack Merrill

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

“One of my big messages with this (one-man) show is that I am 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 identifying factor in my life… This trauma wouldn’t run my life.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit regenn.org