Actor Jack Merrill, who has appeared in Grey’s Anatomy and Law & Orderhas spoken out about being abducted and raped by serial killerJohn Wayne Gacy 46 years ago.

Gacy, an entrepreneur who also performed as Pogo the Clown, was convicted of raping, torturing and murdering at least 33 young men and boys in ChicagoIllinois in the 1970s. He was executed by lethal injection in 1994.

Entering People, Merrill — now 65 — says the horrific incident happened one night when he finished swimming at his YMCA. He was walking home in Evanston, Illinois when a man stopped and said, “Wanna go for a ride?” It was Gacy.

The then 19-year-old said yes. He thought they would go around the block a few times but Gacy started driving fast and turned into a dangerous neighborhood.

Gacy told him, “Lock your door. It’s dangerous.” The actor had never gotten into a stranger’s car before. The killer stopped near a freeway ramp and asked Merrill if he had ever done “poppers” or amyl nitrate. Gacy then took out a rag, splashed a liquid on it and pushed it into the young man’s face, knocking him unconscious.

When Merrill awoke, he was handcuffed. He saw the freeway exit and later stood outside Gacy’s home.

Gacy told him to be quiet. Merrill then realized how dangerous the man was.

“I knew I couldn’t tease him,” Merrill wrote. “I just had to diffuse the situation and act like everything was okay.”

Merrill thought the dark home was a trap.

Gacy asked if the actor trusted him, he wrote. He replied that he did. Gacy then removed his handcuffs. The two then had a beer before Merrill was dragged down the hall.

“He put this homemade contraption around my neck. It had ropes and pulleys, and it went around my back and through my handcuffs in a way that if I struggled I would choke,” he wrote.

“He put a gun in my mouth. Then he raped me in the bedroom. I knew if I fought him I didn’t have much of a chance. I never yelled or screamed. I also felt sorry for him in a way, like he didn’t necessarily want to do what he did, but he couldn’t stop.”

The men had been in the home for hours. Finally, Gacy got tired and said he was going to take Merrill home.

Merrill got out of the car not far from where Gacy had picked him up hours earlier.

“He gave me his phone number and said, ‘Maybe we’ll meet again sometime,'” Merrill continued.

“When I got home, I flushed the number down the toilet and took a shower. I didn’t call the police – I didn’t know he was a murderer at the time.”

It wasn’t until several months later when Gacy was arrested in December 1978 that Merrill understood the potential gravity of his narrow escape.

He read a headline in Chicago Sun-Times, reads: “Body found in suburban location.” He noticed the same freeway exit on a map printed by the newspaper. He called the newspaper and told an employee, “That guy raped me.”

The employee replied, “What did you say your name was?” Merrill hung up.

The actor said he has forgiven Gacy. Until now, he has only told his close friends about what happened. Merrill has written a one-man show about his life called Save. It runs at the Electric Lodge in Los Angeles from October 24th to November 3rd.

He told the magazine that the show is “cathartic” and that he is “proud of my journey.”