‘Doesn’t sound like Tommy’: Former Nevada colleagues react after police identify 1960 child killer

Chicago detectives have identified Thomas McInerney, a former Chicago police officer and later homicide detective, as the suspect in the 1960 murder of 8‑year‑old Gloria Kowalewicz, who was shot in the head while walking to church. The case was reopened after DNA analysis linked semen found on the child’s clothing to McInerney, who was 24 at the time of the killing.

McInerney spent 28 years with the Chicago Police Department before retiring and moving to Nevada, where he worked as an investigator for the federal public defender’s office in Reno and Las Vegas until his 2004 retirement. He died of cancer in 2006 at age 70. The Metropolitan Police Department in Las Vegas did not comment directly on the case, directing a reporter to file a public‑records request.

Former colleagues expressed disbelief. Attorney Michael Kennedy said, “Doesn’t sound like Tommy to me,” adding, “Nothing about my experience with Tommy would indicate that he would be involved in something like that.” He also recalled, “If he said he was going to do something, he did it with flavor, he did it with expertise and he was a man of his word.” Retired assistant defender Arthur Allen described McInerney as “personable” with “a dry sense of humor,” while Franny Forsman noted, “There’s not a lot of detail in the story that I read, but that is not the Tom McInerney that I knew.”

Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal