DNA technology that didn’t exist when Gloria Kowalewicz, 8, was killed in 1960 led investigators to Thomas F. McInerney Jr., who was a homicide detective for the Chicago Police Department.
— Read on www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chicago-police-find-killer-65-year-old-cold-case-murder-little-girl-on-rcna602947
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Wow, amazing after all these years. All you need is a determined investigator who will do anything to solve a case and not kowtow to the higher ups.
The same Chicago PD that failed to investigate the numerous tips about Gacy? Color me shocked.
He commits this crime a year after joing the force. I wonder how many other open cases nationwide may match his DNA or the “carefully preserved fingerprint”. Apparently they successfully matched a latent fingerprint left on the victim’s purse strap to the original fingerprint card McInerney submitted on his 1959 Chicago police job application.
I immeidiately think of the latent partial print recovered from Kristine’s coat, and other latent prints from an envelope (stated in notes of 3-17-2008).
How does this not surprise me ? In Michigan he would likely get probation. Mr. Gacy was well known to Chicago police department. I used to work in funeral service. There was no way he buried those bodies on his own.
He had two known accomplices,Rob Kram and Mike Rossi. Neither was charged with any crimes although they admitted to digging trenches in the crawl space. Rossi had the best defense lawyers money could buy, not because his parents were wealthy (they weren’t) but because his grandfather was very important to Mayor Daly. I think he was a precinct captain.
It seems there have been many law enforcement people who have been convicted of crimes. Maybe there should be a push for law enforcement fingerprints to be added to CODIS. JS…
I’d be willing to bet the police unions are adamantly against having their members supply their DNA to CODIS, and for obvious reasons. They’ll claim privacy concerns, but that really shouldn’t be an issue. They should also be drug tested on a regular basis, especially for steroid use. None of this will ever happen, of course
Police unions and their legal defense funds are a scourge. I recently read The American Way of Killing, The Invention of an Epidemic, by Malcolm Gladwell. I highly recommend it. The book’s focus is on the Second Amendment and the dishonest conversations we have about the epidemic of gun violence. It is very thought provoking on many fronts.
The author takes no position on police unions or LDFs, but I found myself thinking there is no way we should defund the police. In fact, Gladwell points out that compared to cities of similar sizes in other countries, many PDs are too small. My conclusion was that we need to pay police a lot more, raise standards and root out this OG bullshit.
And how did I miss this book? The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession, by Ken Alder, professor of history at Northwestern University. The book was written in 2009, but a recent Throughline podcast hosted Professor Alder to discuss the lie detector machine.
https://www.npr.org/2026/10/20/nx-s1-6005367/can-the-polygraph-test-really-spot-a-lie
Private polygrapher Larry Wasser, I still think of you from time to time. And not fondly. How ironic that you are/were in the “truth” business. You and your old MSP polygrapher pals, sticking your stupid thumbs on the scales of justice. Sickening.
Another example of “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”