The John Wayne Gacy Investigation Just Solved An Unrelated Cold Case

Wertheimer and Drath were maternal half-siblings whose mother died when they were young. After their mother's death, Drath's stepfather turned the boy over to be a ward of the state. Wertheimer said she now believes that Andy, then around 16, traveled to San Francisco to get his guardianship transferred to California. 

"I didn’t memorize when it was because I didn’t realize that was the last time I would see him,” said Wertheimer, now 51.

Gacy raped and murdered dozens of young men in the Chicago area throughout the 1970s. He preyed on teens and young adults, including those who were gay, drifters, homeless or employees of his construction company. Eight of the 33 bodies found in the crawlspace under Gacy's home were never identified. 

In 2011, Dart reopened the investigation  and made a national appeal to anyone whose relative disappeared from 1970 to 1979. 

San Francisco police had taken exceptional care of Drath's remains. In 2014, Drath's DNA samples were uploaded into the FBI 's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. This month, Dart's office was notified of a match with a San Francisco homicide victim.  

With her brother's fate now confirmed and San Francisco police pursuing a murder investigation, Wertheimer said she takes comfort in closure.

"There’s a certainly that he’s not suffering anymore and no one can hurt him anymore,” she said.

"We missed out on so much. My sons will never know their Uncle Andy. I never got to know him as a man," Wertheimer said. "I would have liked to have just had the ordinary: life's ups and downs, Thanksgiving dinner. I'd like to think we'd have had each other's back in this world ... pals though it all." 

The university has one of nine forensic labs that submit data into the FBI's CODIS system. Matthews said the combination of the FBI's DNA database and NamUs' missing and unidentified persons database has been "amazing." 

Matthews singled out Cook County sheriff's detectives as “power users" of the system. "I have other agencies coming to me saying, 'I want to do what Chicago just did,'"he said. 

But many police agencies lack the funds, manpower or resolve to take advantage of the systems, Matthews said.

The university lab, and several others nationwide, process DNA, fingerprints and dental records for free. But even at zero costs, Matthew said, "maybe it’s not enough."

Matthews said the federal Help Find the Missing Act, dubbed "Billy’s Law" would require law enforcement agencies to use NamUs. The bill would streamline reporting for police and medical examiners by connecting NamUs with the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database and provide grants to medical examiners and law enforcement to enter data.