Missing Ore. man found after 35 years, family feared he was John Wayne Gacy victim

(CBS/AP) BEAVERTON, Ore. - When Ted Szal ran out on his family 35 years ago, his relatives feared he had been killed by notorious serial John Wayne Gacy. Szal's family only learned this week that their long-lost relative is still alive and living in a suburb of Portland, Ore.

"My family thought I was dead. That hurt when I heard that," the 59-year-old carpenter told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "There's a difference between being murdered and running away, and I basically just ran away."

In 1977, when Szal was 24, he parked his car at Chicago's O'Hare airport, threw his keys down a sewer grate and got on a plane to Colorado Springs. He says he abandoned his relatives after the turmoil of a divorce and a bitter family feud.

Szal says he never intended to look back.

"I threw the keys away and I threw my life away 35 years ago," he said. "I missed them a lot, course I did. But I'm also stubborn. I made up my mind."

Szal's older sister contacted the Cook County sheriff's office in October when authorities asked for tips that might help them identify eight unknown Gacy victims whose bodies were recently exhumed. The sheriff's office issued a public plea for families of young men who disappeared in the 1970s to submit DNA samples for comparison with the victims' remains.

Gacy is remembered as one of history's most bizarre killers, largely because of his work as an amateur clown. He was convicted of murdering 33 young men, sometimes luring them to his Chicago-area home for sex by impersonating a police officer or promising them construction work.

The building contractor stabbed one and strangled the others between 1972 and 1978. Most were buried in a crawl space under his home. Four others were dumped in a river.

Gacy was executed in 1994.

Investigators said Gacy lived near O'Hare. As a young white man who worked in construction and disappeared from the airport in 1977, Szal fit Gacy's victim profile, investigators said.

Authorities used a computer database to find Szal living in Beaverton, Ore., and a local police officer visited his apartment Monday to confirm his identity. Cook County officials say his relatives were told Tuesday that he is alive.

"Being able to tell an 88-year-old father that his son, whose picture he has been carrying around for 34 years in his breast pocket, has been found alive is something special," Sheriff Thomas Dart said in a statement.

Szal hasn't spoken with his relatives yet. It's overwhelming, he said, and he needs to digest the news. He told police they could give his address to relatives, and they'll start with letters.