{"id":23015,"date":"2015-12-29T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/gacy-probe-clears-11-unrelated-cold-cases\/"},"modified":"2015-12-29T09:00:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:00:08","slug":"gacy-probe-clears-11-unrelated-cold-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/gacy-probe-clears-11-unrelated-cold-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Gacy probe clears 11 unrelated cold cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014<\/strong> His task was to solve a cruel mystery decades after a serial killer\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Jason Moran\u2019s work began in a graveyard, his first stop in his quest to identify the eight unknown victims of John Wayne Gacy. More than 30 years had passed since Gacy had murdered 33 young men and boys; most of their remains were found in his crawl space.<\/p>\n

Investigators now had more sophisticated crime-solving tools, notably DNA, so the Cook County sheriff\u2019s detective was assigned to find out who was buried in eight anonymous graves.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately, Moran had a breakthrough: He helped a family confirm what it had long suspected \u2014 Gacy killed their brother.<\/p>\n

Since then, though, Moran\u2019s search has led him down a totally unexpected path: He\u2019s cleared 11 unrelated cold cases across America. After eliminating these young men as Gacy victims, he\u2019s pored over DNA results, autopsy reports and Social Security records, enlisted anthropologists, lab technicians, and police in Utah, Colorado, New Jersey and other states \u2014 and cracked missing person\u2019s cases that had been dormant for decades.<\/p>\n

Most recently, he identified a 16-year-old murder victim in San Francisco who\u2019d been buried 36 years ago with his name unknown. Before that, he helped one family learn what happened to their teenage brother last seen at a New Jersey campground in 1972.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s brought comfort to some by proving, through science and dogged research, what they already sensed in their hearts \u2014 that their missing loved ones were dead.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s brought joy to others, tracking down family members who are alive, stunning discoveries that have reunited brothers and sisters, fathers and sons.<\/p>\n

Marveling at this remarkable detour from the ghastly Gacy trail, Moran recalls something he recently told his boss:<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it possible that an evil serial killer has done some good?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The eight unknown<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moran\u2019s work began four years ago after his boss, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, made a public appeal: He urged anyone who thought a relative was an unidentified Gacy victim to step forward and submit to a DNA test.<\/p>\n

A phone started ringing. Emails stacked up. Moran built a database, prioritizing about 170 tips that poured in from more than 20 states, representing some 80 missing young men.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t new duty for the detective. A seasoned cold case investigator, he\u2019d seen the anguished faces of families living in limbo. \u201cThe saddest people you can ever talk to are the parents of a missing child,\u201d he says. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to give up and you don\u2019t want to convince yourself they\u2019re dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moran focused on those the same age, 14 to 24, and with similar backgrounds to Gacy victims: Many had troubled families or substance abuse problems. Some were gay. Others had worked construction for Gacy, a building contractor who sometimes lured victims by hiring them or pretending to be a police officer. He was executed in 1994.<\/p>\n

On TV shows, cold case investigations are fast-paced fiction. In reality, they\u2019re slow-motion fact. Records can be misplaced or tossed, evidence deteriorated or destroyed. It can take months, even years to find the crucial piece of a puzzle.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re telling a story and learning someone\u2019s fate,\u201d Moran says. \u201cYou\u2019re doing something for a family. You\u2019re giving them a sense of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities had removed the jaw bones and teeth of the eight unknown victims, hoping for eventual identification. Decades later, they were buried in buckets in a single pauper\u2019s grave. In 2011, they were exhumed. Moran stashed them in a bag and flew to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, where lab workers developed solid DNA profiles for four victims.<\/p>\n

For the other four, the entire remains had to be exhumed, an \u201cunnerving process\u201d for the detective, who supervised as the caskets were lifted from the soil. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more private,\u201d he says, \u201cthan someone\u2019s final resting place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Victim 19 gets a name<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of Moran\u2019s first tips was promising. It came from a family that had approached authorities soon after Gacy\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

William Bundy\u2019s mother suspected he\u2019d killed her son, but back then dental records were the main forensic tool. There was a hitch: Bundy\u2019s dentist had retired and destroyed all his patients\u2019 records.<\/p>\n

Three decades later, Bundy\u2019s mother was dead, but his sister and brother were hungry for answers. Moran took DNA from both.<\/p>\n

Bundy seemed a probable Gacy target: He\u2019d hung out in a club in an area the killer frequented, and a friend had provided an important tip: Shortly before his death, Bundy was carrying money he\u2019d earned from construction work.<\/p>\n

Within weeks, the siblings\u2019 DNA was linked to Victim 19 (police numbered victims as they were removed from Gacy\u2019s house). But it wasn\u2019t enough for a firm identification.<\/p>\n

Moran reviewed Victim 19\u2019s dental records, noticing a big gap between his front teeth and empty spaces where his upper canine teeth had been removed.<\/p>\n

He asked Bundy\u2019s sister and brother for photos of William, hoping a smiling image would reveal the gaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t always tell people why I\u2019m asking for things,\u201d Moran says. \u201cThat raises their suspicions.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were no photos, but they had something better. As a teen, Bundy had his top canine teeth removed and saved them because they looked cool. His sister had kept them all these years. When she handed them to Moran, he had proof: Bundy was Victim 19.<\/p>\n

Later, he escorted the family to a gravestone marked simply, \u201cWe Remembered\u201d \u2014 the inscription for each of the unidentified eight.<\/p>\n

It turned out Bundy had been buried in a cemetery his family had visited to pay respects to other relatives, not knowing he was there.<\/p>\n

So far, Bundy is the only Gacy victim Moran has identified. But there were leads from other families who\u2019d suspected their missing loved ones had died at Gacy\u2019s hands, and Moran\u2019s work was just beginning. Over time, he became a confidant, comforter and friend to many of them.<\/p>\n

In every Gacy-related case involving DNA, Moran told families the results would be entered in CODIS, the federal Combined DNA Index System. If a genetic link ever emerged, he promised to call.<\/p>\n

And he did \u2014 sometimes years later.<\/p>\n

\n

A tattoo and five fillings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moran would have bet a week\u2019s salary Andre Drath was a Gacy victim.<\/p>\n

He was the right age, a runaway and had lived near the serial killer.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Drath\u2019s half-sister, Willa Wertheimer, told Moran about Andy, whom she hadn\u2019t seen since 1978. The two were like Mutt and Jeff, fishing buddies, playmates, forever bonded by tragedy. Their mother died when she was 5 and he was 7. They had different fathers.<\/p>\n

The grief-stricken little boy began getting in trouble. His stepfather turned him over to the state. As a ward, he bounced around in foster homes, where he was abused. He regularly visited his sister. Then one day he disappeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to fantasize about finding him,\u201d his sister says. \u201cI thought I would try to help him in any way I could. Maybe he was deeply wounded or on drugs. … I just wanted to hold him and tell him I love him and say I\u2019m sorry about everything that had happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

When her DNA eliminated any link to Gacy victims, she assumed the case was closed.<\/p>\n

Four years later, a Texas lab worker notified Moran that Wertheimer\u2019s DNA had been linked to an unidentified body found in San Francisco in 1979. For various reasons, that DNA hadn\u2019t been submitted to CODIS until late 2014.<\/p>\n

Moran ordered the San Francisco medical examiner\u2019s autopsy report and noticed the man was about Drath\u2019s age, almost 17. He\u2019d been murdered, shot multiple times.<\/p>\n

Scanning the reports, Moran\u2019s eyes fixed on a revealing detail: The teen\u2019s right shoulder had a one-word tattoo: Andy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my goodness,\u201d Moran muttered.<\/p>\n

Moran was confident this was Drath, but wanted more evidence. He went record-hunting closer to home, reviewing Drath\u2019s files from the Illinois agency that supervised him as a ward. Dental records were again critical: Drath had five fillings. So did the teenager buried in the sands of Ocean Beach.<\/p>\n

He also found a faded letter in the Illinois files from a San Francisco lawyer trying to get Drath\u2019s guardianship transferred from Chicago \u2014 proof the teen had moved.<\/p>\n

Last fall, Moran delivered the news to Wertheimer. They chatted casually at first, then he adopted a phrase the military uses to inform families of a death: \u201cI regret to inform you …\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no written rules,\u201d Moran explains, \u201cbut you\u2019ve just got to come up with a way to notify people that\u2019s professional and sympathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Wertheimer, a psychologist, it was bittersweet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was relieved that he wasn\u2019t hurting or suffering,\u201d she says, \u201cbut knowing how he died … I wondered. Did he get a chance to think of me? Did he see it coming? I felt awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Francisco police have reactivated their investigation, and Moran is dealing with the California cemetery, hoping in the coming weeks to have Drath\u2019s remains exhumed from the pauper\u2019s section.<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought her to this point,\u201d he says, \u201cnow I\u2019d like to help bring him home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

DNA and bones<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jason Moran cradled a cream-colored urn as he knocked on the door of the North Side home.<\/p>\n

It had been 36 years since Edward Beaudion walked out of that house, a 22-year-old new college graduate heading to a wedding. Now the detective was delivering his cremated remains to his sister, Ruth Rodriguez, and elderly father, Louis.<\/p>\n

DNA and old-fashioned police work brought this mystery to a frustrating end.<\/p>\n

The case had a named suspect: A petty criminal named Jerry Jackson told police in 1978 that he\u2019d fought with Beaudion in downtown Chicago, punched him, dragged his body into a car, then dumped him in a suburban forest preserve, according to Moran.<\/p>\n

Jackson was arrested in Caruthersville, Missouri \u2014 about 400 miles away \u2014 with the Chevy Nova that Beaudion had been driving. It was his sister\u2019s car; she found a bullet inside. Chicago police also found a gun and the same caliber bullets in Jackson\u2019s house, Moran said.<\/p>\n

A search of the Chicago-area woods, though, turned up no body. Jackson was convicted only of stealing the car and taking items from it.<\/p>\n

Decades later, Moran agreed to investigate, sensing how painful Beaudion\u2019s disappearance remained to his family. \u201cI really felt the sadness and desperation in their voices,\u201d he says. \u201cThey needed to find something out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, their DNA \u2014 newly added to a federal registry \u2014 was linked to skeletal remains that had recently arrived at the Texas lab. Some kids had spotted a leg bone jutting from a shoe while hiking through the wooded area where Jackson said he\u2019d dumped Beaudion\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

That discovery was in 2008. Unfortunately, the remains sat on the shelf of the Cook County medical examiner\u2019s office for five years before being sent to be tested. Studying the autopsy report, Moran noticed the leg bone contained a surgical screw in one knee. Beaudion had one, too.<\/p>\n

That was enough to confirm his identity \u2014 yet that five-year delay thwarted Moran\u2019s bigger plans. While preparing to go to Missouri to arrest Jackson in Beaudion\u2019s death, he received disappointing news: Jackson had died months earlier.<\/p>\n

Beaudion\u2019s family accepted the news graciously, though his sister lamented her mother had died not learning what happened to her son. Moran, knowing Rodriguez was a devout Roman Catholic, consoled her. \u201cIf you\u2019re a believer,\u201d he said, \u201cEdward was waiting for her in heaven. He was already there. So she knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moran and Dart, the sheriff, accompanied Rodriguez and her father to the spot where Beaudion had been found. His father planted a cross in the soil. Later, the family sprinkled the area with holy water.<\/p>\n

Though Moran knew the Beaudions had suffered for decades, he sensed some relief, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis father told me when he dies, he\u2019ll have Edward\u2019s ashes in his casket and said, \u2018All of three of us will be together in perpetuity,\u2019\u201d Moran says. \u201cIn a way, I\u2019ve almost given him part of his life back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Everybody deserves a name\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thousands of miles away, a 75-year-old Army vet had his own lingering questions.<\/p>\n

Ron Soden contacted Moran about his younger half-brother, Steven, who\u2019d vanished in 1972.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d run away while on a camping trip organized by the New Jersey orphanage where he lived with his sister, April. Their mother had placed them there.<\/p>\n

Steven\u2019s father lived in Chicago. Could he have traveled there looking for him? Moran thought it possible, and teamed with New Jersey State Police to work the case.<\/p>\n

April\u2019s DNA was ultimately linked with skeletal remains found at New Jersey\u2019s Bass River State Forest, about a mile from where Steven was last seen. That discovery was in 2000, but it wasn\u2019t until 2013 \u2014 and more DNA tests from another half-brother \u2014 that Steven was identified. His cause of death is unknown, though hypothermia is suspected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always held out that hope … then all of sudden you find out and it\u2019s not there anymore,\u201d says Ron Soden, who lives in Tacoma, Washington. \u201cTo realize he probably died at 17 … it\u2019s just a shame his life had to be that way through no fault of his own.\u201d<\/p>\n

These poignant stories, Moran says, are a powerful motivator.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got these young kids who struggle through their short lives,\u201d he says. \u201cNow they\u2019re anonymous. They don\u2019t have a headstone saying they were ever on this earth. I want them to have some dignity and respect so the world knows they once lived.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, everybody deserves a name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Reunion<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are happy endings in Moran\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, he\u2019s located five men who\u2019d vanished in the 1970s. Each time, he\u2019s been incredulous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to become a family counselor,\u201d Moran says, \u201cbut with all these men I\u2019ve found alive, I scold them and say, \u2018Why would you do this to a loving family?\u2019 This is almost unforgivable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, Moran reunited Edyth and Robert Hutton \u2014 after 41 years apart.<\/p>\n

Edyth had made numerous attempts to find her long-lost brother. She mailed about 300 postcards to various Robert, Rob, Bob and Bobby Huttons nationwide. She periodically placed online classifieds in Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico \u2014 places she thought he\u2019d be.<\/p>\n

She even asked for help from a relative, a private investigator, who thought he\u2019d located Hutton in Colorado. But when Edyth and her father wrote letters to that address, they were returned as undeliverable. \u201cI thought, shoot, he doesn\u2019t want to be found or he\u2019s the wrong person,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In 2012, in a last-ditch effort she searched NamUs, a website featuring thousands of missing and unidentified people, narrowing her list to seven. She contacted the respective law enforcement agencies. One person replied: Jason Moran.<\/p>\n

Hutton had done construction work, and Moran speculated he might have traveled through Chicago.<\/p>\n

Using Hutton\u2019s vital statistics, he thought he\u2019d tracked him to Colorado but when local police arrived, the man was gone. He left no forwarding address.<\/p>\n

Moran waited several months for updated information to surface in databases. When the sheriff\u2019s analysts checked again, they found a match in Stevensville, Montana. Moran asked sheriff\u2019s deputies there to knock on the door.<\/p>\n

They did \u2014 and Hutton opened the door. In a phone call with Moran, he confirmed he was Edyth\u2019s brother. Why, the baffled detective asked, had he cut all family ties?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said it was basically because he\u2019d gotten caught up in some hippie-trippy lifestyle, and as time went on it was easier to stay away,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Moran called Edyth Hutton. \u201cYour brother is alive,\u201d he announced. The siblings re-connected the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like a hole in my heart had been filled,\u201d she says. \u201cI also felt astonished at how huge that hole was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edyth Hutton says neither she nor her father were angry. \u201cPeople have a lot of reasons why they disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her brother, she says, told her he\u2019d gotten involved with drugs, straightened out and returned to the family\u2019s hometown in California but everyone had moved. He declined to be interviewed for this story.<\/p>\n

This year, Robert and Edyth Hutton surprised their father for his 89th birthday. It was the first time since the 1960s they\u2019d all been together.<\/p>\n

Robert Hutton recently moved to Nevada to live near his sister. \u201cWe see each other almost daily,\u201d she says, \u201cand we love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Work still to do<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moran has about 40 more leads to pursue.<\/p>\n

Might they lead to more Gacy victims? Might they help solve unrelated cases that have languished for decades?<\/p>\n

Moran is determined to unlock more secrets. He already has dramatic reminders of his success: On his walls are posters of teenage boys, their faces frozen in time. Across each one in red letters is a stamp: \u201cCold Case Cleared.\u201d<\/p>\n

He looks at them every day.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Anyone with tips that might identify the seven remaining Gacy victims can call 708-865-6244 or go to www.cookcountysheriff.org .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 His task was to solve a cruel mystery decades after a serial killer\u2019s death. Sgt. Jason Moran\u2019s work began in a graveyard, his first stop in his quest to identify the eight unknown victims of John Wayne Gacy. More than 30 years had passed since Gacy had murdered 33 young men and boys; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":23016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23015"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}