Former Chicago police officer identified as child killer in 65-year cold case murder of Gloria Kowalewicz
A former Chicago police officer has been identified as the man who killed an 8-year-old girl in a cold case murder that went unsolved for more than 65 years.
Gloria Kowalewicz was killed in 1960 when she was 8 years old. According to newspaper reports at the time, Kowalewicz was abducted during a three-block walk from her home to church.
Her body was found about two hours later in the Palos Hills forest preserve on Nov. 13, 1960. She had been shot twice in the head.
Along with the gunshot wounds, Kowalewicz also had bruises to her neck. According to contemporary newspaper reports, responding officers found enough blood in the woods to believe she was killed there before her body was left behind.
Chicago police said investigating officers collected evidence from the murder scene and scattered along the highway leading back to Chicago. The evidence – including a bullet, Kowalewicz's coat, her shoes and her white communion purse containing her prayer book – was carefully inventoried and preserved, CPD said. Officers were also able to lift a fingerprint from the strap of her purse.
CPD formed a task force, and members knocked on hundreds of doors, the department said. More than 1,300 people were interviewed in the search for the killer, and more than a dozen questioned under a polygraph, the department said.
But the murder remained unsolved for the next six-and-a-half decades.
This year, using advances in DNA technology and the preserved fingerprint, Chicago police said their Forensic Services division – with assistance from Illinois State Police and the FBI – was able to identify Kowalewicz's killer as Thomas F. McInerney, Jr., a former Chicago police officer who retired from the department in 1987 as a violent crimes detective.
McInerney committed the murder shortly after he joined the department in 1959, CPD said.
Police said after McInerney retired from the department he moved to Las Vegas, where he died in 2006 at the age of 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," CPD said in a 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."
