Just this October, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office announced they used new technology to help solve an old case involving one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history.
The mystery began in 1978, as an evidence technician for the sheriff’s office crouched in the crawl space under John Wayne Gacy’s home in unincorporated Chicago. The technician was searching for the body of a missing 15-year-old boy.
Investigators knew Gacy had gone into the pharmacy where the boy worked part-time. Witnesses heard Gacy offer the boy a job, and the boy told his mother he was going to meet a contractor to discuss possible work. He was never seen again.
After weeks of surveillance, investigators had a warrant to dig. The technician saw small red worms and suspected they were feeding on human remains. He plunged his shovel into the mud and hit an arm bone. In the next 10 days, he uncovered the remains of 28 teenage boys and young men.
Gacy confessed to torturing, sodomizing and murdering 33 young men between 1972 and 1978. He buried most of his victims on his property, but threw five bodies into area rivers. Investigators initially referred to the remains by a number, based on the order in which they were removed from Gacy’s property.
