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Another victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy identified

FILE - This 1978 file photo shows serial killer John Wayne Gacy. The case of John Wayne Gacy has helped authorities solve another slaying, one that he didnt commit. The Cook County Sheriffs Office is scheduled to announce Wednesday, April 23, 2014, they have identified the remains found in a forest preserve in 2008 as those of 22-year-old Edward Beaudion of Chicago. Beaudion was identified after his relatives came forward to submit DNA samples as part of the effort to identify several of Gacys 1970s victims. Authorities believe Missouri resident Jerry Jackson killed Beaudion in 1978. But without a body at the time, they never charged him. Jackson died last year at age 62. (AP Photo/File)

By: Associated Press

Posted at 9:48 AM, Oct 25, 2021

and last updated 2021-10-25 13:29:14-04

Authorities say a North Carolina man 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 sometime between early 1976 and 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.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart speaks at a news conference accompanied by Dr. Willa Wertheimer Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015, in Chicago. An effort by the sheriff's department to identify remains of young men murdered by serial killer John Wayne Gacy in the 1970s led to a break in an unrelated case of a unidentified teenager found shot to death in San Francisco 36 years ago that turned out to be her maternal Half brother Andre "Andy" Drath. Dart announced Wednesday Sept. 22, 2015 that DNA tests revealed a "genetic association" between the remains of the teen and Wertheimer, who submitted her DNA to the office in 2011. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Five victims now remain unidentified.

In a statement, Alexander’s sister, Carolyn Sanders, thanked the sheriff’s office for giving the family some “closure.”

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Another victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy identified

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