CHICAGO -- More than 30 years after Sherry Marino buried her 14-year-old son, she is asking for permission to exhume the boy's remains.
Officials identified Michael Marino as one of 33 victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy almost four years after his mother reported him missing. But according to papers filed with Cook County Circuit Court Thursday, his mother has long harbored doubts that the body was that of her son.
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.
The 1979 pathological report indicated that Gacy's victim had fractured his collarbone and suggested that the child's molars had started coming in, according to the filing. But X-rays provided by Marino's dentist months before the boy's disappearance show that not all of his molars had yet grown in, and the mother does not believe her son ever broke his collarbone, her lawyers said.
Marino wants a DNA test to determine if the boy buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside is her son. She has been visiting the gravesite for more than three decaces, according to her lawyers.
"There's a good chance that there will be testable DNA on the body," her attorney Robert Stephenson said. "She just wants a definitive answer, and we can't get it any other way at this point."
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