Sheriff: Newly ID’d Gacy victim’s death was news to family

By DON BABWIN
Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — Authorities say a North Carolina native who moved to Chicago was one of the victims of John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys in the 1970s. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said at a news conference Monday that Francis Wayne Alexander would have been 21 or 22 years old when Gacy killed him in 1976 or early 1977. Alexander was one of eight Gacy victims whose remains were buried without police knowing who they were. Dart’s office exhumed those remains in 2011 in the hopes that DNA testing could help. Five victims now remain unidentified. In a statement, Alexander’s sister, Carolyn Sanders, thanked the sheriff’s office for giving the family some “closure.”