Authorities have come close to solving a cold case by identifying a deceased U.S. Army veteran as the potential man who kidnapped and murdered an 8-year-old girl in 1960.
Police found Gloria Kowalewivz shot dead in a forest ditch on Nov. 12, 1960, hours after she went missing while walking to church in Chicago, Ill. The case turned cold and has remained a mystery for more than 65 years, with police interviewing more than 1,300 people and questioning a dozen under polygraph.
That may have changed. Chicago Police have had a breakthrough linking an individual to the crime scene.
According to Chicago Police (CPD), cited by the Associated Press, DNA samples link Thomas F. McInerey Jr.—a veteran and former homicide detective in the CPD who was working for the department at the time—to the crime scene.
“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,” the police said in a statement to the AP on Tuesday.
The State’s Attorney’s Office in Cook County told the publication it was “making efforts to identify cases that may have involved” McInerey.
How Police Cracked the Case
Police told the AP that they collected and preserved a bullet, the victim’s clothes, shoes and prayer book and, with the help of the FBI and Illinois State Police, linked DNA found on those items to McInerey’s fingerprint—which was present on the child’s purse strap.
They used technology that allows federal and local law enforcement agencies to compare evidence with genetic profiles on genealogical websites. Authorities previously used this technology to identify the Golden State Killer some four decades later.
The FBI is “pursuing every investigative lead that may bring closure on other potential unsolved crimes that occurred during that time period in our area,” the agency said in a statement to the AP.
The U.S. has an estimated 250,000 unsolved murders with some 5,000 to 6,000 new cold cases added every year.
Neither the Department of Justice nor the Department of Veterans Affairs publishes an isolated statistic detailing how many military veterans face murder charges on an annual basis.
McInerey retired from the police in 1987, then worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Reno and Las Vegas. He died in 2006.
“He was honored as the Outstanding Federal Defender Investigator in 2003 and received numerous commendations during his years with the Chicago Police Department,” according to an online obituary that was published when he died. “Tom is also a veteran of the U.S. Army and served as a paratrooper in the Rangers.”
