A Chicago police badge may have hidden a child’s killer in plain sight for 65 years.
Quick Take
- Chicago police say a fingerprint and DNA link former officer Thomas McInerney Jr. to the 1960 murder of 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz.
- McInerney joined the Chicago Police Department in 1959 and later worked as a homicide detective before becoming a federal investigator in Las Vegas.
- He died before investigators made the connection, so he will never face trial or answer questions about the crime.
- Police are now checking his DNA against other unsolved cases to see if Gloria was his only victim.
A Little Girl Vanishes on a Chicago Morning
Gloria Kowalewicz was 8 years old when she disappeared in November 1960 while walking through her Chicago neighborhood. Her murder shocked the city and went unsolved for generations. Investigators preserved key evidence from the scene, including a fingerprint lifted from the strap of her purse, a decision that would not pay off for more than six decades. That patience eventually gave modern forensic tools something to work with.
The case sat cold through decades of changing technology, changing leadership, and changing expectations about what police could prove. Gloria’s family lived with an open wound and no answers. That changed only after advances in DNA science and genetic genealogy gave investigators a new way to revisit evidence that had been sitting untouched since the Kennedy administration.
Fingerprint and DNA Evidence Point to a Fellow Officer
Chicago police say the break came when they pulled McInerney’s original 1959 department job application and compared its fingerprints to the print preserved from Gloria’s purse. They matched. The department also said DNA recovered from the evidence was linked to McInerney through investigative genetic genealogy, a technique that compares crime-scene DNA with genetic data tied to family-tree research websites.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Illinois State Police assisted in that forensic work, giving the identification backing beyond Chicago police alone. McInerney was 24 years old and newly hired by the department when Gloria was killed, and his parents reportedly lived just blocks from her family, according to the Chicago Tribune. He went on to serve as a Chicago homicide detective before later working as a federal investigator in Las Vegas.
A Case Closed Without a Courtroom
McInerney died before anyone connected him to the crime, so there will be no trial, no jury, and no cross-examination of the evidence against him. Police have described this as a resolved case, but it is worth remembering that identification by police is not the same as a conviction tested in open court. That distinction matters, even when the forensic story is compelling.
Investigators are now checking whether McInerney’s DNA, now logged in national criminal databases, connects him to other unsolved killings from his decades on the force. No additional cases have been confirmed. Still, the possibility that a trusted homicide detective may have had other victims is the kind of development that deserves careful, evidence-based follow-up rather than speculation.
🚨 COLD CASE SHOCKER: DNA & a job file fingerprint have linked former Chicago detective Thomas McInerney Jr.—who died in Las Vegas in 2006—to the 1960 murder of 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz. Solved after 65 yrs. 🧬https://t.co/v0zkARPvnn
— 702times (@702times) October 14, 2026
What makes this case land so hard is the betrayal built into it. A man sworn to investigate murders may have committed one himself, then spent a career working alongside detectives chasing other killers. Gloria Kowalewicz’s family waited 65 years for an answer that finally arrived, even if it came too late for the man responsible to ever stand before a judge.
Sources:
foxnews.com, nbcnews.com, people.com
