DNA ties a former Chicago detective to unsolved murder of 8-year-old girl
Por Cybele Mayes-Osterman — – World RSS Feed
DNA ties a former Chicago detective to unsolved murder of 8-year-old girl
More than 1,300 people were interviewed and over a dozen individuals were questioned under polygraph throughout the investigation, police said
Cybele Mayes-Osterman Tuesday 13 October 2026 17:40 EDT
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Chicago police say DNA evidence has tied a former homicide detective to the decades-old murder of an 8-year-old girl who vanished while walking to church more than 65 years ago.
Gloria Kowalewicz was found shot dead in a ditch in 1960, just hours after disappearing.
Police say new technology allowed them to match a fingerprint and DNA from the crime scene to Thomas F. McInerney Jr., who joined the department in 1959 and later became a homicide detective working on violent crimes.
“McInerney should never have worn the CPD star, and it is devastating to accept that he was never identified and held accountable while he was alive,” police said in a statement provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The State’s Attorney’s Office in Cook County, where the murder took place, is “making efforts to identify cases that may have involved” McInerney, the office said in a statement emailed to The AP on Tuesday.
Gloria was walking a few blocks from her home to morning Mass on Nov. 12, 1960, but she never arrived, according to police.
Her body was found roughly four hours later, dumped in a forest preserve in southwest Chicago.
Authorities formed a task force to investigate the killing.
They “knocked on hundreds of doors,” interviewed more than 1,300 people, and questioned over a dozen individuals under polygraph, according to the statement.
Police collected and preserved a bullet, Gloria’s coat and shoes, and a white communion purse containing her prayer book.
Using modern forensic technology alongside assistance from the FBI and Illinois State Police, investigators matched DNA found on those items and a “carefully preserved” fingerprint lifted from the purse strap to McInerney.
The FBI said in a statement to The AP that it was “pursuing every investigative lead that may bring closure on other potential unsolved crimes that occurred during that time period in our area.”
The technology used to identify McInerney allows law enforcement agencies to compare crime scene evidence with genetic profiles on genealogical websites. Previously used to identify the
Golden State Killer by matching DNA from a tissue found in a trash can, the technology has prompted privacy concerns.
McInerney retired from the police force in 1987, police said.
He subsequently worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Reno and Las Vegas until his retirement in 2004, according to a Chicago Tribune obituary.
He died in 2006.
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