Former Detective Suspected in Girl’s Murder May Have Killed Others, Investigator Says

A search that lasted more than 65 years has finally produced an answer. Chicago police say they have identified the person who abducted and killed 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz as she walked to church.

The suspect was a police officer.

Investigators identified Chicago Police Department officer Thomas F. McInerney Jr. as the man who abducted, shot and killed Kowalewicz on Nov. 12, 1960.

McInerney was a relatively new member of the department at the time and worked as a detective assigned to violent crimes. He died in 2006.

Still, clues connecting him to the crime remained. Decades later, advances in forensic technology helped investigators turn those clues into an identification.

Kowalewicz left her home shortly before 8 a.m. that morning to walk several blocks to St. Mary of Mt. Carmel Church for mass. She never made it there.

Roughly four hours later, authorities discovered her body in a ditch at a forest preserve southwest of Chicago. Evidence left at the scene and along the highway leading back toward the city offered investigators a possible trail, but no suspect was identified.

Among the items recovered were a bullet, the child’s coat and shoes, and her small white communion purse, which contained a prayer book.

The breakthrough came when detectives revisited the case with modern investigative methods. A fingerprint recovered from the strap of Kowalewicz’s purse ultimately led them to McInerney more than six decades after the killing.

Rogue cop

Chicago police created a task force to pursue the case. Investigators went door to door, speaking with hundreds of residents, and interviewed more than 1,300 people in an effort to find the person responsible.

More than a dozen individuals were also subjected to polygraph examinations. Meanwhile, the killer continued working within the police department.

Michael Gould, a founding member of the New York Police Department’s K-9 unit, said investigators in 1960 were limited by the tools available to them. “It’s not that law enforcement was incompetent at the time—they just didn’t have the sophisticated investigative tools,” Gould told News Outlet.

Gould said specially trained police dogs might have provided investigators with a stronger lead by following the killer’s scent.

However, Gould noted that law enforcement did not widely adopt dogs for criminal investigations until the mid-1980s. Since then, K-9 teams have become a standard resource and have helped solve numerous missing-person cases.

“Dogs could have tracked where the person lived and what direction he fled,” Gould said.

“They give us X-ray vision. They allow us to see things—evidence—that’s invisible to the naked eye. And that’s what the primary locating tool should be for law enforcement, police K-9.”

According to a statement Chicago police sent to News Outlet, detectives never abandoned the effort to identify Kowalewicz’s killer. Over the years, the department continued working with Illinois State Police and the FBI in pursuit of answers.

The DNA and fingerprint evidence was preserved for decades until, finally, technology advanced enough to bring answers.

It’s rare for law enforcement to maintain records and keep evidence that long, Gould said.

He expects the DNA connection may lead to solving more cold cases.

“My prediction there are going to be other victims [linked to McInerney]. I don’t think this was a sole act.”

“This, in my view, would have been a planned and intentional act. It’s rare that this happens once in a serial murderer’s life,” he said. “They don’t do it one time. In fact, it usually escalates when they’re successful.”

What makes it “even more horrific,” Gould said, is that McInerney may have used his influence as an officer to lure her into his car.

“We teach our children that you should trust law enforcement, and when they leverage that against innocent people, particularly children, it’s horrendous.”

After working in the Chicago Police Department for 28 years, McInerney retired and moved to Las Vegas. He died 20 years ago at age 70.

“His abhorrent actions not only took the life of an 8-year-old child, but left her parents and all who knew and loved her shattered as they searched for answers,” the Chicago Police Department said in a prepared statement.

“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. Though her parents have since passed away and were not able to receive justice in their daughter’s murder, we hope that this news brings a measure of closure to all who knew Gloria and her story.”

The Kowalewicz family’s spokeswoman, their attorney, did not respond to requests for comment from News Outlet.