Dart's Request For Further Gacy Excavations Denied

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 30, 2012 7:00PM

The Cook County State's Attorney's office, citing a lack of probable cause, denied a request by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's office to search the backyard of a Northwest Side apartment building for victims of John Wayne Gacy.

The backyard at the 6100 block of West Miami Avenue has been suspected of being used by Gacy to bury bodies during his murder spree in the 1970s, but previous searches of the property have turned up less evidence than Geraldo Rivera's dig through Al Capone's vault. Sheriff’s office spokesman Frank Bilecki said authorities detected 17 anomalies in the backyard that can require a more thorough search, using infrared, radar technology and other high-tech search tools to determine if those anomalies are gravesites.

Sally Daly, spokeswoman for Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, said the claims lacked sufficient probable cause and cited a 1998 search of the property that was conducted without the consent of the property owner.

"There is even less probable cause now as a result of the negative results of the consented-to search in 1998," said Daly, adding that the prosecutors in the office were "open to reviewing any new information that the sheriff's office may currently have or obtain in the future."

The sheriff's office said a consent request sent to the owners of the property was "politely declined." The 1998 dig drew huge media attention. Dart's office has been revisiting the Gacy case since last summer, when they took DNA samples of the eight unidentified victims in the hopes they could place names to the John Does. One of them was identified as William George Bundy, while two suspected Gacy victims were found to be living in Florida and Oregon, respectively.