Gacy Victim IDed: determining when he was killed largely stemmed from knowing when the victim who was buried on top of him went missing

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


CHICAGO -- When the discovery of more than two dozen bodies stashed under John Wayne Gacy's house near Chicago was making headlines all over the world in the late 1970s, Francis Wayne Alexander's family in North Carolina didn't think much of it. The way they saw it, Alexander had cut off communication with them because he wanted to be left alone.

Then came news this month that for more than 40 years, the man they knew as Wayne was known as Victim #5 in the city where he had gone to start a new life. They were told that DNA tests on the remains of one of the half-dozen unidentified victims of the notorious serial killer were Alexander's.

“They just loved him, but they thought that he wanted nothing more to do with them, so that’s why there was never a missing person’s report,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said at a news conference Monday announcing the latest victim identification.

“It is hard, even 45 years later, to know the fate of our beloved Wayne,” Sanders wrote in a statement released by Dart'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. ... We can now lay to rest what happened and move forward by honoring Wayne.”

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5 of Gacy's victims remain unidentified.

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