12-04-2012, 12:28 PM
Detectives have long wondered what secrets serial killer John Wayne Gacy and other condemned murderers took to the grave when they were executed – particularly whether they had other unknown victims.
Now, in a game of scientific catch-up, the Cook County Sheriff's Department is trying to find out by entering the killers' DNA profiles into a national database shared with other law-enforcement agencies. The move is based on an ironic legal distinction: The men were technically listed as homicide victims themselves because they were put to death by the state.
Authorities hope to find DNA matches from blood, semen, hair or skin under victims' fingernails that link the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases. And they want investigators in other states to follow suit and submit the DNA of their own executed inmates or from decades-old crime scenes.
"You just know some of these guys did other murders," said Jason Moran, the sheriff's detective leading the effort. He noted that some of the executed killers ranged all over the country before the convictions that put them behind bars for the last time.
The Illinois testing, which began in the summer, is the latest attempt by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to solve the many mysteries still surrounding one of the nation's most notorious serial killers. Dart's office recently attempted to identify the last unnamed Gacy victims by exhuming their remains to create modern DNA profiles that could be compared with the DNA of people whose loved ones went missing in the 1970s, when Gacy was killing young men.
That effort, which led to the identification of one additional Gacy victim, led Dart to wonder if the same technology could help answer a question that has been out there for decades: Did Gacy kill anyone besides those young men whose bodies were stashed under his house or tossed in a river?
"He traveled a lot," Moran said. "Even though we don't have any information he committed crimes elsewhere, the sheriff asked if you could put it past such an evil person."
Dart's office said Monday that it believes this is the first time DNA has been added to the national database for criminals executed before the database was created.
"This has the potential to help bring closure to victims' families who have gone so long without knowing what happened to their loved ones," Dart said in a news release.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03...30854.html
Now, in a game of scientific catch-up, the Cook County Sheriff's Department is trying to find out by entering the killers' DNA profiles into a national database shared with other law-enforcement agencies. The move is based on an ironic legal distinction: The men were technically listed as homicide victims themselves because they were put to death by the state.
Authorities hope to find DNA matches from blood, semen, hair or skin under victims' fingernails that link the long-dead killers to the coldest of cold cases. And they want investigators in other states to follow suit and submit the DNA of their own executed inmates or from decades-old crime scenes.
"You just know some of these guys did other murders," said Jason Moran, the sheriff's detective leading the effort. He noted that some of the executed killers ranged all over the country before the convictions that put them behind bars for the last time.
The Illinois testing, which began in the summer, is the latest attempt by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to solve the many mysteries still surrounding one of the nation's most notorious serial killers. Dart's office recently attempted to identify the last unnamed Gacy victims by exhuming their remains to create modern DNA profiles that could be compared with the DNA of people whose loved ones went missing in the 1970s, when Gacy was killing young men.
That effort, which led to the identification of one additional Gacy victim, led Dart to wonder if the same technology could help answer a question that has been out there for decades: Did Gacy kill anyone besides those young men whose bodies were stashed under his house or tossed in a river?
"He traveled a lot," Moran said. "Even though we don't have any information he committed crimes elsewhere, the sheriff asked if you could put it past such an evil person."
Dart's office said Monday that it believes this is the first time DNA has been added to the national database for criminals executed before the database was created.
"This has the potential to help bring closure to victims' families who have gone so long without knowing what happened to their loved ones," Dart said in a news release.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03...30854.html
