A north side mother wants to know if the grave she's been visiting for more than 30 years actually contains her son.
Through the years, Sherry Marino said she's consistently wondered if the body in the grave -- pulled from a crawlspace of serial killer John Wayne Gacy's home -- was her son, Michael, who disappeared 35 years ago.
Marino on Thursday filed a petition in Cook County Circuit Court asking that the body be exhumed and undergo DNA testing to confirm the identity.
"There's a good chance that there will be testable DNA on the body," attorney Robert Stephenson told the Chicago Tribune. "She just wants a definitive answer, and we can't get it any other way at this point."
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. Among them: The autopsy showed the victim had all of his second molars. But one of the 14-year-old's adult molars hadn’t come in yet, according to a dental chart created about seven months before he disappeared in October 1976.
Marino told the Chicago Sun-Times that she continues to hold out hope that her son is alive.
