Skip to main content

Courtney Lund O'Neil

Biography

Courtney Lund O'Neil

Courtney Lund O’Neil is a California-based writer with a focus in memoir, literary journalism and true crime. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, Parents, Chicago Tribune, Harper’s Bazaar, The Normal School, The Columbia Journal and more. The recipient of the Marcia McQuern Award for excellence in Creative Nonfiction and the Marye Lynn Cummings Endowed Scholarship in both Creative Nonfiction and Poetry, she holds a PhD from Oklahoma State University and a MFA from University of California, Riverside. She lives with her husband and children in Southern California.

Courtney Lund O'Neil

Books by Courtney Lund O'Neil

Postmortem: What Survives the John Wayne Gacy Murders
by Courtney Lund O'Neil - Memoir, Nonfiction, True Crime

On a December night in 1978, Courtney Lund O’Neil’s mother, teenager Kim Byers, saw her friend, Rob Piest, alive for the last time. At the end of his shift at the pharmacy where they both worked, 15-year-old Rob went outside to speak to a contractor named John Wayne Gacy about a possible job. That night, Rob became Gacy’s final victim; his body was later found in the Des Plaines River. Kim’s testimony --- along with a receipt belonging to her found in Gacy’s house, proving that Rob had been there --- would be pivotal in convicting the serial killer who assaulted and killed over 30 young men and boys. Though she grew up far from Des Plaines, Courtney has lived in the shadow of that nightmare, keenly aware of its impact on her mother. In search of deeper understanding and closure, Courtney and Kim travel back to Illinois.