Did John Wayne Gacy Kill Michael Marino?
For 30 years Sherry Marino has visited the grave site dedicated to her son, Michael Marino.
She is now asking to have the body exhumed and a DNA test ran to make sure that it is Micheal in that grave.
That may not be my son, mom says 30 years after murder
CHICAGO More than 30 years after Sherry Marino buried her 14-year-old son, she is asking for permission to exhume the boy’s remains.
Chicago officials identified Michael Marino as one of 33 victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy almost four years after his mother reported him missing. But according to papers filed with Cook County Circuit Court Thursday, his mother has long harboured doubts that the body was that of her son.
Lawyers for the mother point to disparities between autopsy findings by the Cook County medical examiner and her son’s dental records and medical history.
The 1979 pathological report indicated that Gacy’s victim had fractured his collarbone and suggested that the child’s molars had started coming in, according to the filing. But X-rays provided by Marino’s dentist months before the boy’s disappearance show that not all of his molars had yet grown in, and the mother does not believe her son ever broke his collarbone, her lawyers said.
Marino wants a DNA test to determine if the boy buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside is her son. She has been visiting the gravesite for more than three decades, according to her lawyers.
Chicago Tribune
Michael went missing on Oct. 24, 1976, at the age of 14, but wasn’t identified as one of Gacy’s 33 victims until 3 1/2 years later. Over the years, Marino has suspected the body was not really Michael.
On Thursday, her attorney, Robert M. Stephenson, said he will file a petition in Cook County Circuit Court to allow her to have the body exhumed from Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
”She’s always had her doubts,” Stephenson tells CBS 2′s Kristyn Hartman. “She says every time she visits his grave one of the things she wonders is, ‘Is this you?’”
This article has a video as well.
“It’s going to be expensive to exhume a body, to do DNA testing and compare it. So, there are still a lot of hurdles going forward, but I think that she deserves a definitive answer that science can give her today,” attorney Robert Stephenson told WGN News.
Gacy raped and murdered 33 boys and young men between 1972 and 1978, and reportedly showed no remorse for the crimes. He ultimately convicted and executed in 1994.
I can only imagine her pain.
I do not know what I would do in her position.
Of course you want to know if that is your child in that grave but what if it isn’t? If that is not Michael what happened to him 30 years ago?
This is so sad and no matter the outcome it will not have a happy ending.
I do hope that they allow the testing so that Ms. Marino can have the answer she needs.
Real Life Monsters 