DNA brings pain, closure to family of John Wayne Gacy victim

CHICAGO (AP) — In the fall of 1976, Carolyn Sanders received an exciting postcard from her brother.

“I'll see you soon cause I love you,” Francis Wayne Alexander — known to his family as Wayne — wrote to his younger sister. She hadn't spoken with him since his 1975 wedding and hoped the brief note meant he was coming to visit the family on Long Island, New York, for Christmas.

It was the final communication Sanders can remember receiving from her brother, who on Monday was confirmed to be among the victims of John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area in the 1970s and was executed in 1994.

Alexander’s family spent the next 40-plus years hoping he had a reason for staying away, trying not to linger on the possibilities.

Decades without a word didn’t stop the family from wistfully mentioning Alexander, hoping he would call or even show up for a holiday. Sanders typed his name into Facebook from time to time and their brother Richard Clyde checked some genealogical sites.

“I always hoped that he was still out there, and for some reason couldn't call,” Sanders told reporters on Tuesday. “Not even ... wanting to think of what that reason could be.”

It's not clear exactly when Alexander was killed. Investigators said the last known record they found is a parking ticket from January 1976 and that financial records showed he made very little money that year, suggesting he was killed sometime from early 1976 to mid-March of 1977.

Sanders said their mother, who is 87, spoke to Alexander every month and last remembered speaking to him in November 1976, when Alexander asked her to mail his birth certificate to California because he hoped to get a security job.

When Alexander didn't call the following month, Sanders said their mother...