New IL Law Ends Waiting Period To Report Missing Persons, Draws From Gacy Murder Probes

ILLINOIS — A bill that eliminates the practice of observing a waiting period before taking a missing person's report, as well as other new guidelines, has been signed into law.

SB 24, the Missing Persons Identification Act, sponsored by Sen. Michael Hastings (19th District) and Rep. Debbie Meyers-Martin (38th District) on the House side, will require law enforcement to follow the new guidelines in an effort to hasten the resolution of missing person’s cases.

Under SB 24, law enforcement is now required to:

• Immediately take a report when they are notified of a missing person and enter it into the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System (LEADS).

• Eliminate the practice of observing a waiting period before taking a missing person's report.

• Collect existing fingerprint records, dental records, photographs, and other biometrics for purposes of publishing the information in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), a federal database, if the person remains missing for 60 days.

• Collect fingerprint records of the missing person and search them against all available repositories at the local, state, and national levels. This is opposed to only searching local criminal databases, which limits results to those who have been involved in the criminal justice system.

• Keep missing persons cases active with their agency, and in all applicable databases, until the person returns or is located.

The legislation was championed by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, drawing from detectives’ experiences and skill sets from reopening the John Wayne Gacy murders in 2011, to identify eight unidentified victims of the serial killer.

Gacy’s crimes horrified Chicagoans and the nation in 1978 when the bodies of 29 young men were exhumed from the crawl space of Gacy's nondescript tract house in unincorporated Norwood Park Township. Four other bodies were discovered elsewhere, when it is believed that Gacy started running out of room on his property and began disposing his victims' bodies in rivers. Gacy was executed by lethal injection for his crimes at the Stateville Correctional Center in 1994.

Using advances in DNA technology, sheriff’s investigators were able to identify the remains of a missing Minnesota teen in 2017. Sixteen-year-old James “Jimmie” Byron Haakenson (John Doe No. 24) was identified through DNA samples provided by his two siblings. Haakenson had disappeared in 1976. His remains were discovered in 1978 in Gacy’s crawlspace.

In 2018, sheriff’s police released reconstructed images of two young men also found on Gacy’s property, identified as John Doe No. 10 and John Doe No. 13, in an effort to elicit new leads.

“John Doe #5” was identified as a missing North Carolina man, Francis Wayne Alexander, who was believed to be 20 or 21 when he disappeared in 1977. The sheriff’s cold case investigators worked with DNA Doe Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to using genetic information to locate relatives of unidentified deceased persons.

William George Bundy, an accomplished diver and gymnast at Senn High School, disappeared in October 1976 from his home in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. He was on his way to a party, but never arrived. Assigned the designation “John Doe No. 19,” Bundy’s remains were identified in November 2011.

Other investigations into missing cases believed to be tied to Gacy were resolved when their remains were found out of state, or they were found still alive but living in other states.

After reopening the investigation in 2011, Cook County sheriff’s detectives saw firsthand how often missing person cases were incomplete or overlooked.

Related:

- Renewed Effort Aims to Identify Unknown Victims in John Wayne Gacy Murders
- John Wayne Gacy Victim's Remains Identified As Missing Minnesota Teen
- Reconstructed Facial Images Released of Unidentified Gacy Victims
- John Wayne Gacy 'Victim No. 5' Identified As North Carolina Man
- Gacy Victim Identified
- Sheriff Finds Missing Man as Part of Ongoing Gacy Investigation
- John Wayne Gacy Investigation Leads to Break in 36-Year-Old California Case
- No Hidden Gacy Graves Found in Chicago Building
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