Chicago police say they have solved one of the city's oldest child murders, and the man they named was one of their own. On Tuesday, October 13, the department said DNA and a preserved fingerprint tie former homicide detective Thomas F. McInerney Jr. to the 1960 killing of 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz, the Associated Press reported.
McInerney died in 2006 and was never charged. Because he cannot be tried, the evidence police describe will never be tested in a courtroom, and no statement from his family has been reported.
A walk to morning Mass
On November 12, 1960, Gloria left home shortly before 8 a.m. to attend Mass at St. Mary of Mt. Carmel Church, a few blocks away, according to Fox News. She never arrived. About four hours later, she was found shot dead in a ditch in a forest preserve in southwest Chicago.
The original investigation was enormous. A task force knocked on hundreds of doors, interviewed more than 1,300 people and questioned more than a dozen under polygraph. Nobody was charged. Investigators kept the physical evidence, including a bullet, Gloria's coat and shoes, and a white communion purse that held her prayer book.
What police say the evidence shows
Police said that with help from the FBI and the Illinois State Police, modern forensic testing matched DNA from those items, and a fingerprint lifted from the purse strap, to McInerney. The AP noted that the technology can compare crime scene evidence with genetic profiles on genealogy websites, the same approach used to identify the Golden State Killer, and that it has raised privacy concerns.
More detail came from the Chicago Tribune, as summarized by IBTimes. Investigators sent Gloria's coat to the FBI for genetic genealogy work in 2024. They compared the print on the purse strap with fingerprints from McInerney's 1959 police application and reported a match. Records indicated he had owned three Colt revolvers of the type used in the killing. Investigators also said they found no known prior contact between him and Gloria, and his motive remains unclear.
McInerney joined the department in 1959, about a year before the murder, and was 24 when Gloria was killed, according to the IBTimes account. He worked violent crimes as a detective and retired from the department in 1987. According to a Tribune obituary cited by the AP, he then worked for the Federal Public Defender's Office in Reno and Las Vegas until he retired in 2004.
A department names one of its own
The department said McInerney "should never have worn the CPD star" and that it was devastating he was never identified and held accountable while alive. According to the IBTimes account, Chief of Detectives Kevin Bruno called him "a murderer who was acting as a police officer," and credited the investigators who kept the case open. "We don't forget, and these guys never stopped," he said.
Gloria's parents died without learning who killed their daughter. Her brother, Adam Kowalewicz, told the Tribune that McInerney "never paid his dues," according to IBTimes.
The Cook County State's Attorney's Office says it is working to identify other cases that may have involved McInerney. The FBI says it is pursuing every lead that may bring closure to other unsolved crimes from that era.
Answers without a trial
Cases closed after a suspect's death put the justice system in an awkward spot. There is no defense lawyer to challenge how the evidence was stored for more than six decades, no cross-examination of the lab work and no verdict. The public is left with the conclusions of investigators, however strong they may be. That is a sharp contrast with the Tupac Shakur case, where decades passed before Keefe D finally faced a jury and the evidence was tested in open court.
For Gloria's family, the answer came 65 years late, and it came about a man who spent his career on the side of the law. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel takes apart on the show.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
