43 Years Ago His Remains Were Recovered From John Wayne Gacy’s Crawl Space And Though He Was Just Identified, 5 Victims Still Remain Without Their Names
Chicago, Illinois. Serial killer John Wayne Gacy was active in Chicago from 1972, when he committed his first murder, through 1978, when he was arrested that December.
John Wayne Gacy persuaded some of his victims to come to his home after offering them a job with a construction company he started, while other victims he simply snatched straight off the streets.
Once inside, John Wayne Gacy did horrific things to the boys and men he got his hands on.
He was convicted of taking the lives of 33 boys and young men, 26 of whom he hid beneath the crawl space of his home that sat on West Summerdale Avenue.
It’s been 43 years since authorities recovered those 26 boys and men from the crawl space, yet 6 of them remained without their names, up until a few days ago.
Des Plaines Police Department; pictured above is John Wayne Gacy in a mugshot
On October 25th, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office announced that one young man who had stayed nameless for over 4 decades had finally been identified.
“Cook County Sheriff’s Police identified Victim #5 found in Gacy’s crawl space on Dec. 26, 1978, as Francis Wayne Alexander,” the Cook County Sheriff’s Office explained in a press release.
“He was killed by Gacy sometime between early 1976 and early 1977. Alexander would have been 21 or 22 years old at the time of his murder.”
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Francis was from North Carolina, and he spent a little time in New York prior to making his way to Chicago.
Working with the DNA Doe Project, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office was able to positively match Francis’s DNA to that of his living relatives, resulting in him finally getting his name back after 43 years.
“Sheriff’s Police also combed through financial records, public records, post-mortem reports, and other data to confirm that Victim #5 and Alexander were the same person,” the Cook County Sheriff’s Office noted about the process they used to identify Francis.
Cook County Sheriff’s Office; pictured above is Francis
“The information included that the last record for Alexander was a traffic ticket on Jan. 5, 1976, and financial records revealed he earned little income in 1976. Sheriff’s Police found there is no other proof of life for Alexander after this time. Alexander lived in an area that was frequented by Gacy and where other identified victims had previously lived.”
Although Francis has been identified, there still are 5 more victims who remain without their names.
These victims have been come to be known as Victim #10, Victim #13, Victim #21, Victim #26, and Victim #28.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office is still working to figure out the identities of these 5 remaining victims, and they’re hopeful that genetic genealogy or other types of cutting-edge technology will be able to help.
“It is hard, even 45 years later, to know the fate of our beloved Wayne,” Francis’s sister Carolyn Sanders said in a statement provided to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
“He was killed at the hands of a vile and evil man. Our hearts are heavy and our sympathies go out to the other victims’ families. Our only comfort is knowing this killer no longer breathes the same air as we do.”
John Wayne Gacy passed away on May 10th, 1994, after being executed at the Statesville Correctional Center.
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