A Malden man’s guilty pleasure of investing in murderabilia has come back to haunt him thanks to a “cursed” clown painting by serial killer John Wayne Gacy, which the collector claims turned his life into a three-ring circus.
“I just want to get rid of it,” said musician Nikki Stone about the late Gacy’s signed self-portrait of his terrifying alter ego, “Pogo the Clown.”
Since he plunked down $3,000 in 2001 to buy the framed oil from national murderabilia merchant Arthur Rosenblatt, Stone said his beloved dog has died and his mother found out she had cancer.
When a friend offered to store the painting at his house, the friend’s neighbor was killed in a car crash. A second friend who kept the painting for Stone attempted suicide, Stone said.
“I’ve never even hung it,” said Stone, who hopes a less superstitious buyer will at least cover the $3,000 he blew - even if only to burn the true-crime artifact.
The creepy conversation piece is now in the care of Stone’s pal Shawn McCarron, a consignment art dealer and owner of Kaleidoscope Tattoo & Art in Cambridge.
McCarron has had his own share of bad luck: His mother, Maureen, 58, was murdered in Malden in 1999.
“I’m not afraid of it,” McCarron said of the painting. “I don’t believe in the hocus-pocus and the bad mojo that comes with it.”
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRe...ticleid=113042
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