Ex Chicago Detective Tied to 1960 Girl Murder
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Right 50%
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What happened
On Nov. 12, 1960, eight-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz was abducted while walking to morning Mass at St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church on Chicago’s South Side and was found later that day in a forest preserve southwest of the city, fatally shot twice in the head. Investigators preserved crime-scene evidence, including a fingerprint on her communion-purse strap and, later, a male DNA profile from semen on her clothing, but the case stayed unsolved for 65 years. In 2024, the FBI used genetic genealogy to tie that DNA to Thomas F. McInerney Jr., who had joined the Chicago Police Department as a patrol officer in 1959, become a homicide detective in 1964, retired in 1987, later worked as an investigator for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Nevada, and died in Las Vegas in 2006 at age 70; his 1959 CPD application fingerprints matched the print on the purse. Chicago police said McInerney “should never have worn the CPD star” and that it was “devastating to accept that he was never identified and held accountable while he was alive.” The FBI and Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office are checking whether he can be linked to other unsolved crimes.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 2 articles
2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 2
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Chicago Police Department, Adam Kowalewicz, FBI and Chicago police
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- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: DNA evidence, statement, police statement
- Credits another outlet 0 of 2
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- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 12, 20:50 UTC by NBC News, naming its source. First document in the first report, from NBC News (DNA evidence).
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- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Right-leaning coverage frames Gloria Kowalewicz's death as an abduction and shooting, omitting the semen recovered from her clothes that produced the killer's DNA profile and now underpins a search for other victims. Left-leaning coverage reports that a male profile was built from that evidence years before genetic genealogy named Thomas McInerney, and that the FBI is applying child-predator profiling to look for more cases. No sexual evidence appears in the Fox News account, which describes only that she was shot and killed and later linked by DNA and a fingerprint.
Right-leaning coverage leads by identifying McInerney as a homicide detective. Left-leaning coverage notes he was still a west-side patrol officer when Gloria was killed and only later made detective. The phrase "former Chicago homicide detective" opens the Fox News account, a rank he did not hold at the time of the murder.
Neither side asks why a purse-strap fingerprint lifted in 1960 was never matched to the prints McInerney had already filed with the department when he was hired.
Bottom line
Fox News never mentions semen on Gloria's clothes, the evidence NBC News says produced the DNA profile. A Fox reader can leave thinking a Chicago cop only abducted and shot a child, not that police now treat him as a child predator.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Investigators built a male DNA profile in 2010 from traces of semen found on Gloria's clothes
- McInerney was identified in part by matching the purse-strap fingerprint to prints from his 1959 Chicago Police job application
- Gloria was fatally shot twice in the head
- Gloria's body was discovered roughly four hours after she left home
- Gloria's parents died before learning who killed their daughter
The Left View
NBC News framed the identification as the solving of a case that had “bedeviled investigators for 65 years,” stressing that the killer was “one of their own”—a homicide detective. It compared the forensic method to the capture of Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer and another former cop, but underscored that “unlike DeAngelo, McInerney managed to escape justice.” The piece quoted Gloria’s brother Adam Kowalewicz saying McInerney “lived a decent life and passed on” and “never paid his dues,” lingered on the unanswered question of why Gloria was targeted, and noted that McInerney later received honors as a federal defender investigator while DNA and fingerprint evidence sat unused.
The Right View
Fox News treated the story as a cold-case forensic breakthrough in which DNA technology and a preserved fingerprint identified a former Chicago homicide detective, with authorities now examining other cases that may have involved him. It recounted the 1960 abduction and the original citywide search, quoted the same CPD condemnation that McInerney “should never have worn the CPD star,” and noted that Gloria’s parents died before learning who killed their daughter, with police hoping the identification would bring some closure to those who knew her. The account stayed concise and did not compare McInerney to other notorious former officers or dwell on his later professional honors.
Our Take (balanced)
The left-leaning coverage’s strongest claim is that this is a story of a child killer who hid inside law enforcement and died unpunished: McInerney became a homicide detective after the murder, later won recognition as a federal defender investigator, and Gloria’s brother said he “never paid his dues.” The right-leaning coverage’s strongest claim is that preserved evidence plus modern DNA and genealogy can close even a 65-year-old case and possibly others: the 2024 genealogy hit, the fingerprint match to the 1959 application, and the ongoing FBI and prosecutor review of other crimes are the supporting facts. The central unresolved tension is whether the episode’s meaning is primarily institutional betrayal and a perpetrator who escaped earthly accountability, or primarily the power of cold-case forensics to name the dead and hunt for additional victims.
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