Chicago police say forensic advances have identified a former department detective as the man who killed 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz in 1960, ending a decades-long investigation without the possibility of a criminal prosecution: Thomas F. McInerney Jr. died in 2006 at age 70. Kowalewicz disappeared on Nov. 13, 1960, while walking three blocks from her home to church, according to newspaper accounts from the time. Her body was found about two hours later in the Palos Hills forest preserve. She had been shot twice in the head and had bruises on her neck. Investigators collected and preserved evidence from the scene and along the highway toward Chicago, including a bullet, Kowalewicz’s coat and shoes, and her white communion purse and prayer book. Police also lifted a fingerprint from the purse’s strap. A task force canvassed hundreds of homes, and investigators interviewed more than 1,300 people, Chicago police said, but the case remained unresolved for over six decades. This year, the department’s Forensic Services division worked with Illinois State Police and the FBI to use advances in DNA technology alongside the preserved fingerprint to identify McInerney, police said. He joined the Chicago Police Department in 1959, shortly before the killing, and retired in 1987 as a violent-crimes detective. Police said he moved to Las Vegas after retiring. In a statement, the department said McInerney’s actions devastated Kowalewicz’s family and acknowledged that he was never identified or held accountable during his lifetime. Her parents have since died, police said. The identification brings new information to a case that shaped the lives of Kowalewicz’s loved ones, but it cannot result in a trial or verdict.