CHICAGO — Chicago police say DNA evidence ties one of their former homicide detectives to the 1960 murder of an 8-year-old girl abducted while walking to church, The Associated Press reported via KTAR News.
Gloria Kowalewicz disappeared on Nov. 12, 1960, while walking a few blocks to morning Mass. She was found shot to death about four hours later in a forest preserve in southwest Chicago.
Police said new technology matched a fingerprint and DNA from the crime scene to Thomas F. McInerney Jr., who was then a detective working violent crimes. Evidence included a bullet, Gloria’s coat and shoes, and a white communion purse whose strap held a “carefully preserved” fingerprint.
“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.
McInerney joined the department a year before the killing and retired in 1987, then worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Reno and Las Vegas until 2004, according to a Chicago Tribune obituary. He died in 2006.
The FBI said it is pursuing leads that may bring closure in other unsolved crimes from that era.
Sources: Associated Press via KTAR News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Brett Gustafson / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
