Escape from the Lodge of Sorrows

How Ryan Graveface, an independent museum curator and record producer, is building a legacy of eccentric delights.

Written by David Dufour, Illustrated by Emily Bernier

"Welcome to the Lodge of Sorrows,” says Ryan Graveface. He stands in front of an open door, then gestures for me to walk in. It’s late summer. The low country humidity looms over us, the sun sweltering. Inside the Lodge is a recording studio, a screen-printing workshop, and a vacant space which will soon be a concert venue. The floors are covered with storage boxes. His recording studio is decorated with amplifiers, several synthesizers, as well as what appears to be a small Hammond organ.

The Lodge of Sorrows is one of Ryan’s latest projects. “I think it’s the best name I’ve ever come up with,” he says, “because it’s so indicative of how I feel about this f**king town.”

For thirty years, Ryan has collected true crime memorabilia, roadside oddities, and freak taxidermy. He is the owner of Graveface Records and Curiosities in Savannah, Georgia, the founder of an independent recording label by the same name, as well as the founder and owner of the Graveface Museum. Also, Terror Vision, his outlet for releasing movie soundtracks as well as films on VHS.

He began purchasing true crime collectors’ items in high school. As he puts it, it’s never enough for him to just buy a single piece of memorabilia because he likes it. Ryan Graveface is a selfproclaimed completist—he wants everything. “That’s kind of my thing,” he says. “I don’t typically just buy a thing. I, historically, will buy someone’s estate.”

He owns the largest collection of John Wayne Gacy paintings in the country. For the past seven years, Ryan has also conducted his own private research on several Gacy cases. Using what he finds, as well as information given to him by a fellow collector, Randy White, Ryan has been compiling this material into a documentary. The documentary is his way of showing that, despite being “incredibly guilty,” Gacy is in fact innocent of roughly six of the murders that he was executed for. Not only does Ryan hope to re-open Gacy’s investigation, but he also truly believes that his efforts can change history.

Purchasing estates has left him with more than prison artwork, though. Now that he has acquired unheard interview recordings, and formed relationships with collectors who knew Gacy, he holds information that hasn’t been seen in books or documentaries. “I don’t talk theory,” says Ryan. “I’m only speaking of facts. And some of those facts are gonna piss people off.” The last thing he wants is for people to watch the documentary, and then dismiss his found evidence as theories.

Many of his Gacy artifacts have come from Karen Kuzma, Gacy’s younger sister. She and Ryan first met several years ago and have since become close friends.

Over the years, Kuzma has been subjected to harassment from people she assumed to be collectors. “All the people that Karen kind of befriended in the Eighties, Nineties through her brother . . . ya know, people who were writing to Gacy on death row um, they all turned out to be horrible people,” he says, “Not shocking.” Like any celebrity with hangers-on, dishonest true crime fans have used Kuzma to feel a connection to fame.

Ryan Graveface is not a “flipper,” someone who befriends people like Kuzma only to snatch an item and sell it online. He explains that, given the sheer number of Gacy-obsessed folks on the prowl for money, it was crucial for him to earn her trust as a legitimate collector. “When I met Karen, did I know she owned anything cool from her brother that I would eventually put in a museum? No, technically not,” he says. “But did I want to meet her regardless? Yes. I legitimately care about her.”

Ryan believes that his museum is an educational place. What he’s acquired in his almost thirty years as a collector is certainly impressive, yet also provides grounds for him to finally lay infamous rumors to rest. Rumors such as Gacy’s final words, which have been falsely remembered as: “Kiss my ass.” Far from that, his last words were, as Ryan can recalls, “Taking my life won’t bring the victim’s lives back. Say goodbye to my sister.”

The artifacts on display in his museum break through the often shocking, gruesome veneer of true crime collections. Having only been an establishment for over a year, the museum’s collections probe difficult questions, yet there is still a sense of humor in it all. Ryan says that he’s not a fan of the sensationalism that often surrounds true crime artifacts, like the Museum of Death in New Orleans, where shock is the priority and the facts are secondary.

When the Graveface Museum first opened its doors, folks would challenge Ryan on the accuracy, and truthfulness, of his collection. People often think that they understand famous criminals because they’ve listened to a podcast. Occasionally, Ryan would get backlash from true crime fans because they believed their podcasts over him. The connections that he has built through his thirty-plus years of collecting— meeting collectors, becoming lifelong friends with the family members of notorious criminals—is the rift between him and a typical true crime fan. If nothing else, he would like for someone to leave the museum with a philosophical outlook on criminal justice.

It’s rare that he speaks highly of other collectors, unless they’re from the older generation, the “OG” collectors, as Ryan calls them. “The OG guys are all I care about,” he says, “because they’re the guys that used to visit Manson, and Ramirez, and Gacy. They seemingly like me quite a bit.” If you ask him about contemporary collectors, particularly younger ones who are active on social media, he’ll tell you, “People get into collecting now because there’s fashion to it.” On social media, they will pose with whatever new collectible they’ve found. “There’s like a sexy sort of—I’m not being literal; I don’t think it’s sexy—but like they’re trying to be hot,” he says. “Like, ‘Look at all my tattoos and my Gacy painting.’ It’s bizarre on the collector’s end because they’re s**theads that kind of diminish the whole thing that I love doing.” They find collectibles online from Supernaught or Serial Killers Ink, thinking, “Clearly it’s real. The guy says it’s real.” They tend to buy collectibles that are either fake or overpriced. “There is more fake s**t on the market today than I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” He and his friend James Sparks, a criminologist and Gacy’s former art dealer, like to laugh at them.

But things changed, time passed by, and people around town slowly became apathetic toward the change.

Later, we meet in a room connected to Graveface Records in Savannah’s Starland neighborhood. Ryan’s been using the space as storage for his horror-themed pinball machines and novelty arcade games, or “coin-op machines,” as he puts it. Walking in I see Ryan, hunched over an old pinball machine, trying to make repairs. The glass covering is off, one hand pulling the pinball lever, the other fooling around with the mechanics inside. Surrounding him are dozens upon dozens of coinop machines —each coated in neon, in blinding primary colors. Some are shaped like race cars with little steering wheels attached. In the corner, an old Pac-Man game sometimes shouts “Pac- Man!” in a robotic voice.

He pulls the pinball lever back and watches as the ball zips around. The machine reverberates with flashing noises like that of an old casino. A large window gives a view of the neighborhood, right next to Starland Yard and directly across from a small liquor store.

He glances out the window at the crowds forming near the Yard and describes to me how, exactly, the atmosphere in Starland has drastically shifted. “You see all these white people? Exclusively?,” he asks. “It was not that. It was a very low-income African American neighborhood and I loved it to death.” Before Graveface Records and Curiosities opened its doors, there was nothing like it in Starland or all of Savannah. “The store was such a unique place for about three or four years,” he says, “before all the rich, white developers found it.”

When he first moved to Georgia, he found comradery within the neighborhood. People in town were familiar with Ryan’s previous bands (Black Moth Super Rainbow, the Marshmallow Ghosts, or Dreamend), and would often come into the store asking for autographs. Record releases sold well, and many Savannah folks supported his independent label by attending the shows put on by Graveface artists. It became a popular hangout for residents of Starland. “Moms would shoot the s**t with me while their kids were having a blast,” he tells me. One of the first arcade games Ryan put in the store was simply free entertainment for neighborhood kids. “I was like, ‘I’ve gotta have a free play game in there,’ I don’t know why, I just thought it would be a good idea.”

But things changed, time passed, and people in town slowly became apathetic towards change. Suddenly, no one was coming to the events. The same energy that surrounded him in earlier years, had somehow vanished. In town, people scarcely bought his own releases in the store. “It used to bother me, like, two years ago man. It actually kind of rocked my world,” he says. “How can people claim they’re looking for something here, and there’s someone providing it?” Of course, Ryan could always pack up and take his oddities elsewhere. “I really feel that I’m the only bit of edginess in this neighborhood. And there’s something to that I like.” He hasn’t given up on Savannah. Although he is actively looking to open a location in Chicago, Savannah needs him.

“I think my businesses are just me,” Ryan says. “They’re not even an extension of me. Like, walking into my store, it feels like home to me. Walking into the museum, feels like home to me. I can’t fathom that it feels like that for most people, but for the few people that perhaps do share that sensibility, we probably could be, like, best friends.”

Ryan still feels that, but, despite relative success, he is an outsider. “I’m lucky to have found enough weirdos that are exactly like me from outside of Savannah to support [the Museum],” he says, “because if I had to rely on Savanniahians solely that would have been out of business the month I opened it.” Aside from internet saboteurs, there are numerous fans of the work Ryan is doing. Over the last year his museum went viral on TikTok, which brought a younger crowd that might otherwise not have heard of him. Ryan would meet people who had driven hours to see his collection. Often, they’d leave the very same day because Graveface was their only stop. They weren’t staying the night. They weren’t having dinner. They came for the museum. “We created our own tourism,” he says.

Around 2000 was when he set out to create his independent record label. Graveface—the name and concept— came to him in a dream while he was still in high school. After watching Instrument, a documentary that follows the band Fugazi on tour, he felt that starting a label was possible. He wrote emails to the producers at some of his favorite labels (Kranky and Rock Action, to name two). “I said, ‘Do you have any advice for someone starting a label? I own half your releases, I respect the s**t out of you, just fire when ready.’” One response, from Stuart Braithwaite of the band Mogwai, was positive from what he can remember. But a producer at Kranky records simply wrote back, “Do not do it.”

“I responded like, huh, all heartbroken,” he says. “And I was mad. I stopped buying their releases for a while.” He wrote back telling the producer how old he was (still a teenager), where he lived (the Midwest), and what he did for work (managing a Pizza Hut). That same producer from Kranky records wrote back trying to explain himself. As Ryan can recall, he wrote: “I’m not trying to kill your spirit, but if you’re not going to commit to this fully as a concept, that will be punishing to your artists. The reality is, if you’re working forty-to-fifty hours a week for somebody else, that’s forty-to-fifty hours a week that you’re not putting into your artists.”

“I was pissed,” Ryan says. “Now I think it’s maybe the smartest advice anyone’s ever given me.”

When he was 15, Ryan began writing letters to serial killers in prison. Of all the inmates Ryan has corresponded with, he is especially close with two of them. One of whom, he says, “killed over thirty people and has admitted to me that he’s soulless.” He wouldn’t tell me their names.

“If they’re willing to be honest–and this guy has been nothing but forthcoming—it’s fascinating,” Ryan says. “Same reason you watch a dumb true crime show, but this is a million times more rewarding. You get to hear all the perversion.” Although he finds their honesty rewarding, he often wonders just what it is that makes him so trustworthy. “I think I’m just real,” he says. “See, the thing is, I actually don’t want something.” If they aren’t honest, or he feels like they’re manipulative, he’ll stop writing to them. “There’s nothing masturbatory in it for me,” he says. But he admits that “you could argue I do want something from them—and I want that honesty.” These letters weren’t written with the intention of grifting personal details from the inmates. They were written in earnest, because Ryan wanted to form genuine connections.

This past May, Ryan learned of new health issues that he would not go into specifics about, although they could be severe. “Uh, so I relayed this, I don’t know why, to this specific serial killer,” he tells me. “And he ended up calling me, maybe two days after I told him what I’m going through, and says that he—and this is bat s**t crazy—that he talked to his doctor on death row, and he found out that he can donate a specific organ to me.” This inmate arranged to meet with a lawyer so that he could write an affidavit pledging this organ away. “No friend has called to offer me such a thing. My family hasn’t been really even that nice about it,” Ryan says. “Let’s say the transplant never occurs. I will, until I am dead, I will never forget that someone even offered that.”

It might come as no surprise that Ryan feels different from his own family. “No compatibility at all,” he says. “I’m a musician. My dad played drums in high school; I play music for a living. They didn’t collect s**t. They don’t even really have any hobbies. I can’t find any person in my family that’s even remotely relatable.” He laughs it off and assures me that, “they’re nice people, they’re fine.”

Growing up, Ryan was a quick learner, especially when it came to instruments. “I think I was a bit of a loon,” he says. “The performing arts center in my high school allowed me to just do whatever the f**k I wanted.” When he performed at his high school’s recitals, he would often compose his own music. He still has recordings of the piano recitals. “I actually just found that tape, I haven’t heard it in twenty-plus years. I’m not going to do anything with it,” he says. “It’ll be interesting to see where I was versus where I am. Which I think I was better then, because that was all I did. Now I’m talking Gacy all day instead of practicing.”

I charted out my life when I was 17 years old,” Ryan says. His scheduled accomplishments are measured in massive strides. They begin around age nineteen, then to twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty, forty, up to about his mid-sixties. By age forty, which he is now, his plan was to start publishing books and, unsurprisingly, he is writing one. He’s working on a “story behind the piece” book, which he started writing during the first week of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be a collection of stories recalling how exactly Ryan acquired his sprawling collection, as well as some of his “honey holes” around the country where he found them. “A lot of the stories of acquisition are often times more interesting, or equally interesting, to the pieces themselves,” he says.

Like his achievements, Ryan has also begun plotting his wishes for the estate he’ll leave behind. With absolutely no desire to have children, his legacy will primarily be left to his wife, Chloe Manon. Graveface, the label, will be killed off once he dies. He wants no re-pressings. It’ll be over and royalties will be paid to the artists. “That catalogue will go back to the respective artists,” he says. “Chloe will never have to think about it again.” As far as the record store, he explained his desire to see it become an employee-run coop. “Terror Vision I feel the opposite about,” he says. “I actually have a release schedule billed out for years.”

Ryan says he feels lucky to have Chloe, expressing that when he’s no longer around, he knows everything will be left in good hands. “She’s the only person I’ve ever met, not even dated, that I actually think can successfully take over all of this upon my demise.”

The connections that he has built over his thirty-plus years of collecting, meeting collectors, and becoming lifelong friends with the family members of notorious criminals, is the rift between him and a typical true crime fan.