On Nov. 12, 1960, eight-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz left her West Englewood home to walk three and a half blocks to St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church for her final day of daily Communion. Her mother watched her walk past a gas station and out of sight. She never arrived. Hours later, a laundry driver eating lunch near 104th Avenue in Palos Park spotted her pink-and-brown checkered dress in a ravine. According to the Chicago Tribune, Gloria had been beaten, shot twice in the head, and brought to the woods before she was killed. Edward Kowalewicz identified his daughter's body that same day.

The most surprising element is the suspect's identity: Chicago police have named Thomas Francis McInerney, a 24-year-old CPD officer at the time of the killing, as the person they believe murdered Gloria. Per the Chicago Tribune, McInerney — the son of a Cook County Jail corrections officer whose parents lived a few blocks from the Kowalewicz family — served on the force until 1987 and even worked as a homicide detective. He later moved to Las Vegas and died there in 2006, meaning the suspected killer is dead and the case closes without an arrest or trial.

Cold case detectives reached their conclusion through a yearslong sequence of ballistics tests, fingerprint comparisons and DNA testing. According to CPD, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, the investigation gained momentum earlier this year when the FBI used DNA submitted to family tree websites for comparison. Investigators say McInerney had no prior contact with Gloria and is not suspected in any other crimes. In 1960, police had recovered fingerprints on Gloria's purse strap and Bible and a spent casing near her body, but the semen traces on her coat that mattered decades later were not yet known.

Gloria's brother Adam Kowalewicz was born just months before her death, and he told the Tribune the revelation that a police officer was believed responsible came as a shock, while praising the cold case detectives who cleared the case. 'Now I know my mom and dad's souls can rest,' he said. 'Gloria can rest.' Their father Edward, a WWII veteran, died in 1978; their mother Esther in 2000. The family still does not know why Gloria was targeted. CPD chief of detectives Kevin Bruno called the suspect 'a murderer who was acting as a police officer,' adding the force would not minimize or shy away from it.

The Kowalewicz resolution arrives as genetic genealogy keeps converting decades-old mysteries into charges. The suspect, who had no prior connection to Sperino, is in custody, and the victim's son Wes Sperino said he finally got closure he never expected. Cases once considered impossible are being reopened on family-tree DNA alone.

Because McInerney died in 2006, the case ends without a prosecution, and the Tribune reports his family could not be reached for comment. In 1960, more than 1,000 mourners filled Gloria's funeral at St. Mary of Mount Carmel, where fellow third-grade communicants served as pallbearers, and police interviewed more than 1,300 people without success. Chief of detectives Kevin Bruno told the Tribune the case shows 'we don't forget, and these guys never stopped.' For true-crime readers, the question left hanging is the one Adam Kowalewicz's family still carries: why Gloria.