Chicago police say they have finally identified who killed 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz on Nov. 12, 1960 — a homicide detective who served on the force for 28 years and died in 2006 without ever facing charges.
Genetic genealogy testing, drawn from DNA submitted to an ancestry website, led investigators to Thomas Francis McInerney, who was 24 years old and living around the corner from the Kowalewicz family in West Englewood at the time of the killing, according to the Chicago Tribune. Further analysis of DNA, fingerprints and ballistics evidence corroborated the match.
Gloria had set out from home on a short walk to a nearby church to receive communion when she disappeared. Her body was later found shot twice in the head in a ravine miles away. The case drew a massive manhunt involving local and state police along with volunteers from the fire department, Boy Scouts and veterans’ groups, but for more than six decades it went unsolved. Investigators had determined that Gloria was taken to nearby woods before she was killed, and had gathered eyewitness accounts describing a young man seen with a girl matching her description, but no suspect was ever named.
The case broke open earlier this year when the FBI connected McInerney to the crime scene through the family-tree DNA database, the Tribune reported.
Chicago Police Department Chief of Detectives Kevin Bruno said the resolution reflects the department’s commitment to victims regardless of how much time has passed.
“The fact that he was a police officer is deeply troubling to all of us that have made a career out of this most noble profession,” Bruno told the Tribune. “But at the same time, it’s not something we’re going to minimize or shy away from.”
Gloria’s brother, Adam Kowalewicz, told the paper he was relieved the case had finally been solved and said he hoped the news would have let their late parents “rest.” He also expressed frustration that McInerney never faced accountability for the killing.
“He never paid his dues,” Kowalewicz said. “You hope he’s going to pay his dues with the good lord.”
McInerney spent 28 years with the Chicago Police Department before working as an investigator for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Las Vegas and Reno, retiring in 2004. He was named Outstanding Federal Defender Investigator in 2003, according to an online obituary. He was a father of five, including three daughters, and a grandfather. Family members could not be reached for comment.
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