John Wayne Gacy Investigation Helps Solve Cold Case Murder

John Wayne Gacy, the famous serial killer who murdered more than 30 boys in the 1970s, is being used to solve a cold case murder file from over 30 years ago, but he’s not the one who did it.

Gacy killed young men around his neighborhood by luring them into his home, and then raped, strangled, and buried the boys in a crawlspace underneath his home. Out his 33 murders, a few have still never been identified. Recently, Cook County authorities have been working to identify these bodies and asking those who think they’re related to the potential victims to submit DNA samples.

Serial killer John Wayne Gacy, murderer of dozens of boys, liked to dress up as a clown for kids’ birthday parties pic.twitter.com/WD505NOsj2

— Horror Stories™ (@NotTeIIing) March 20, 2014

One woman, Ruth Rodriguez, stepped up, and got answers she never thought she’d see. Her DNA wasn’t connected to a Gacy victim, but, Rodriguez admits, “I didn’t think Gacy killed him but we figured we’d go ahead and try.” Her DNA did match another set on file from a completely separate murder case. It was 1978 when Ruth’s then 22-year-old brother Edward Beaudion disappeared, and Rodriguez never thought she’d know his killer.

Edward went missing in the summer of 1978 after dropping off a friend after a wedding; he was on his way home when confronted by a man named Jerry Jackson, who assaulted Beaudion, beat him, and locked him in the trunk of his own car before stealing the vehicle and dumping Edward in the woods.

Jerry Jackson was arrested within a month of Edward’s disappearance, but with no remains of the body to be found after investigation, Jackson was only charged with auto theft and only served a four year sentence before being let out on parole. Then in 2008, Edward’s partial skeleton was found by hikers, although authorities wouldn’t be completely certain it was him until this year when Ruth’s DNA tests results came back and found a match with the remains.

Ruth told reporters she was thankful to finally have a sense of closure:

“I can’t understand why he was killed, I’ll never get any answers for that. My mom went to her grave in 2001 not knowing where my brother was. My dad will now be able to know where my brother was. I still want to ask Jerry Jackson why, if you even thought for a moment my brother was still alive … you brought him all the way out there and dumped him like garbage.”

Edward’s case is the latest of at least three people’s remains who’ve been identified as a port of the Gacy case. The investigation was also able to help identify the remains of a 22-year-old-man in Utah and a New Jersey boy who went missing in 1972.