An 8-year-old Illinois girl vanished while walking to church in 1960 and was later found shot to death in a wooded area — sparking a chilling murder mystery that remained unsolved for more than 65 years.
Now, a stunning breakthrough in the decades-old cold case has led investigators to a very unlikely suspect: a Chicago police officer who spent nearly 30 years investigating sex crimes and homicides.
'And as far as we’re concerned, he’s a murderer who was acting as a police officer.'
On Nov. 12, 1960, Gloria Kowalewicz left her family's home in Chicago's West Englewood neighborhood to go to church just three and a half blocks away, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Kowalewicz had just received her first Holy Communion, and a nun at St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church urged her to receive the sacrament every day for two weeks.
On the day she went missing, Gloria's mother, Esther Kowalewicz, dressed Gloria in a pink-and-brown checkered dress and blue leotard before kissing her goodbye and watching her walk away. It would be the last time Esther saw her young daughter alive.
Gloria never reached the church. Hours later, her body was discovered in a secluded spot in the suburbs. Gloria was shot twice in the head. She also had bruises on her neck.
A driver for a laundry company discovered the Chicago girl's body in a ravine in Palos Park, more than 15 miles southwest of Gloria's home.
Investigators determined that Gloria had been killed in the area where she was found because of the large amount of blood at the crime scene.
Police discovered a bloody trail from a nearby road to the crime scene. Investigators made plaster casts of tire tracks found nearby.
Investigators recovered Gloria's shoes, her purse, and a single bullet casing near her body. Police discovered fingerprints on the strap of Gloria's purse and on her Bible. Gloria's coat was found several miles away.
Police interviewed more than 1,300 people, but the extensive investigation failed to identify the killer.
"The search bogged down, mired in a morass of tips and futile investigations and arrests," stated a Chicago Tribune story published six months after Kowalewicz was murdered. "The tangible clues have been sifted and submitted to microscopic examination, all to no avail. Somewhere, perhaps in the same neighborhood, the criminal still walks the streets."
The cold case remained unsolved for more than 65 years before advances in DNA testing and investigative genetic genealogy helped police identify a suspect this year.
Chicago Police cold-case detectives said they believe Gloria's killer was one of the very people sworn to protect her — a Chicago police officer, the Tribune said.
Following a years-long investigation involving ballistics tests, fingerprint comparisons, DNA tests, and data from family tree websites, detectives identified their suspect as Thomas Francis McInerney — who was a 24-year-old police officer at the time of Kowalewicz's murder.
The Tribune reported that McInerney was the son of a Cook County Jail corrections officer, whose parents lived only a few blocks away from the Kowalewicz family home.
McInerney — also a U.S. Army veteran and paratrooper in the Rangers — worked for the Chicago Police Department until 1987. He died in Las Vegas on Aug. 30, 2006.
The Tribune said McInerney’s family could not be reached for comment.
McInerney's obituary stated:
He retired from the City of Chicago Police Department after 28 years of service as a homicide detective. He then worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in both Las Vegas and Reno as an investigator until retiring in 2004. He was honored as the Outstanding Federal Defender Investigator in 2003 and received numerous commendations during his years with the Chicago Police Department.
Kevin Bruno, chief of detectives at the Chicago Police Department, stated:
When you look at the level of work that went into this investigation throughout these six-plus decades — from that initial group of detectives that did everything they could to move this forward, to different detectives picking this up and trying to move it forward, to, finally, this group here — putting in all this time and effort and taking advantage of technological advances to finally bring this case to closure, it just shows you that we don’t forget, and these guys never stopped. 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. But at the same time, it’s not something we’re going to minimize or shy away from. And as far as we’re concerned, he’s a murderer who was acting as a police officer.
Adam Kowalewicz, who was born only a few months before his sister was abducted and killed, told the Tribune: "Now I know my mom and dad’s souls can rest. Gloria can rest."
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