Chicago police say DNA ties a former detective to decades-old unsolved killing of 8-year-old girl

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police say DNA evidence ties one of their former homicide detectives to the decades-old murder of an 8-year-old girl who was abducted as she was walking to church more than 65 years ago.

Gloria Kowalewicz was found shot dead in a ditch in 1960, just hours after she went missing. Chicago police say new technology allowed them to match a fingerprint and DNA from the crime scene to Thomas F. McInerney Jr., then a detective working on violent crimes.

“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 in a statement provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Gloria was walking just a few blocks from her home to a morning Mass on Nov. 12, 1960, but she never made it, according to police. She was found around four hours later, her body dumped in a forest preserve in southwest Chicago.

Authorities formed a task force to investigate. They “knocked on hundreds of doors,” interviewed more than 1,300 people and questioned more than a dozen people under polygraph, according to the statement.

Police collected and preserved a bullet, Gloria’s coat and shoes, and a white communion purse that held her prayer book. Using modern forensic technology and with assistance from the FBI and Illinois State Police, investigators linked DNA found on those items and a “carefully preserved” fingerprint lifted from Gloria's purse strap to McInerney.

The FBI said in a statement to The AP that it was “pursuing every investigative lead that may bring closure on other potential unsolved crimes that occurred during that time period in our area.”

The technology used to identify McInerney allows federal and local law enforcement agencies to compare evidence with genetic profiles on genealogical websites. It was previously used to identify the Golden State Killer more than four decades after the case was first opened by identifying DNA from a tissue left in a trash can. The technology has prompted privacy concerns.

McInerney joined the Chicago Police Department a year before the murder and retired in 1987, police said. He then worked for the Federal Public Defender's Office in Reno and Las Vegas until he retired in 2004, according to a Chicago Tribune obituary . He died in 2006.

Mayes-Osterman is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.