Justice moves slowly. Sometimes it takes sixty-five years to unmask a monster who hid behind a badge.
Back in November 1960, an eight-year-old girl named Gloria Kowalewicz left her West Englewood home to walk to a morning church service. She never made it. Someone snatched her off the street, shot her, and dumped her small body in a forest preserve south-west of Chicago. For decades, the case sat gathering dust. The task force interviewed thirteen hundred people, gave lie-detector tests, and ran down every lead they had. Nothing worked.
Then genetic genealogy changed everything.
Investigators used DNA recovered from physical evidence at the scene and matched it through family tree databases. The trail led directly to Thomas McInerney. The catch? McInerney wasn't just a random stranger living in the neighborhood. He was a Chicago police officer who lived right around the corner from the young victim. He had joined the force in 1959, just a year before the murder, and spent decades working homicides before retiring in 1987.
The Shield That Protected a Killer
It's a chilling realization. The people tasked with solving murders sometimes commit them. McInerney didn't stop at local police work either. After leaving the Chicago department, he headed to Nevada and worked as an investigator for federal public defender offices until 2004. He built a career collecting commendations, awards, and the trust of the legal system.
Meanwhile, Gloria’s parents went to their graves with zero answers. They never knew that the man responsible for shattering their family was a local cop who walked the beat right past them.
When the Chicago Police Department finally released a statement identifying McInerney, they didn't mince words. They admitted he should never have worn the CPD star. But that acknowledgment feels hollow to surviving family members. McInerney died in August 2006 at the age of seventy. He escaped prison. He escaped a trial. He lived a full life, retired comfortably, and passed away twenty years before modern forensics caught up with him.
Why Genetic Genealogy Is Rewriting Cold Cases
We're living through a massive shift in how cold cases get solved. Traditional police work relies on fingerprints, eyewitnesses, and physical clues left at the scene. When those fail, cases stall for generations. Genealogy databases have completely upended that reality.
In Gloria's case, investigators had a fingerprint from her purse strap, a bullet, her coat, and her communion purse. But physical evidence alone couldn't point to an unknown suspect if that suspect wasn't in the state database. By turning to open-source genetic genealogy websites, federal investigators found family connections that bridged a six-decade gap. Ballistics and further DNA testing eventually locked down the match.
This breakthrough follows a growing trend where decades-old mysteries are finally getting cracked. But it also exposes a terrifying truth about accountability.
The Bitter Aftertaste of Delayed Justice
Families don't just want closure. They want consequences.
Gloria's brother, Adam Kowalewicz, put it bluntly when speaking to reporters. While finding out the truth brought a sliver of relief, the frustration of knowing McInerney died without ever paying his dues is overwhelming. He never stood before a judge. He never faced a jury of his peers. He never answered for a stolen childhood.
Institutions love to issue statements expressing sorrow and hoping for closure once the truth comes out. Yet, the systemic failure that allowed a cop to murder a child in 1960 and keep his badge for decades remains a glaring stain on law enforcement history.
Check your local cold case units. Support public access to DNA databases. Demand transparency from agencies guarding old files.
