Illinois
Chicago police say DNA ties a former detective to decades-old unsolved killing of 8-year-old girl
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police say DNA evidence ties one of their former homicide detectives to the decades-old murder of an 8-year-old girl who was abducted as she was walking to church more than 65 years ago.
Gloria Kowalewicz was found shot dead in a ditch in 1960, just hours after she went missing. Chicago police say new technology allowed them to match a fingerprint and DNA from the crime scene to Thomas F. McInerney Jr., then a detective working on violent crimes.
“McInerney should never have worn the CPD star, and it is devastating to accept that he was never identified and held accountable while he was alive,” police said in a statement provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Gloria was walking just a few blocks from her home to a morning Mass on Nov. 12, 1960, but she never made it, according to police. She was found around four hours later, her body dumped in a forest preserve in southwest Chicago.
Authorities formed a task force to investigate. They “knocked on hundreds of doors,” interviewed more than 1,300 people and questioned more than a dozen people under polygraph, according to the statement.
Police collected and preserved a bullet, Gloria’s coat and shoes, and a white communion purse that held her prayer book. Using modern forensic technology and with assistance from the FBI and Illinois State Police, investigators linked DNA found on those items and a “carefully preserved” fingerprint lifted from Gloria’s purse strap to McInerney.
The FBI said in a statement to The AP that it was “pursuing every investigative lead that may bring closure on other potential unsolved crimes that occurred during that time period in our area.”
The technology used to identify McInerney allows federal and local law enforcement agencies to compare evidence with genetic profiles on genealogical websites. It was previously used to identify the Golden State Killer more than four decades after the case was first opened by identifying DNA from a tissue left in a trash can. The technology has prompted privacy concerns.
McInerney joined the Chicago Police Department a year before the murder and retired in 1987, police said. He then worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Reno and Las Vegas until he retired in 2004, according to a Chicago Tribune obituary. He died in 2006.
Washington
FBI arrests OpenAI employee accused of placing recording device in company conference room
WASHINGTON (AP) — An engineer at OpenAI has been charged with secretly installing a recording device inside a conference room in what officials said Tuesday was an effort to capture sensitive conversations about the company’s technology.
The employee, identified as a 35-year-old Saudi national named Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested Friday, a week after the ChatGPT maker discovered an audio recording device hidden inside a company conference room, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco.
The complaint did not identify the company, but the company confirmed in a separate statement that it had discovered a “sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices,” reported the finding to the FBI and fired the employee.
“We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work,” an OpenAI spokesperson said.
“At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated,” the statement said.
The complaint does not detail what Alfozan might have wanted to do with any captured communications, but the company said the device was sophisticated, designed to evade detection and featured advanced encryption and audio monitoring capabilities. OpenAI said it had evidence the employee planned to place other listening devices throughout other parts of the office building for the purpose of recording meetings.
“This alleged attempt by a Saudi national to steal sensitive communications from OpenAI was taken extremely seriously. Theft of intellectual property involving cutting-edge super intelligence technology poses a serious threat to our national security,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement on X.
Alfozan made his first court appearance Tuesday on a charge of using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf. He is due back in court on Oct. 19.
The recording device was found September 30 concealed in toilet paper and inserted into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room, according to the complaint.
Though the conference room where the recording device was found did not have a security camera at the time the object was installed, closed-circuit television footage inside the company’s offices revealed that Alfozan was near the conference room on nearly a dozen occasions last month despite not having any authority to access the space or participate in meetings there, the complaint says.
The company subsequently added a camera to the room that last week captured Alfozan entering and checking behind the television where the recording device had been installed, according to the FBI.
The complaint also alleges that he used a productivity tool to make multiple inquiries about the company’s building addresses, meeting rooms, meeting-room capacities and calendars.
Days before his arrest last week, the complaint says, Alfozan left behind an unattended bag in a different room that, when opened by OpenAI personnel, was found to contain his wallet, identification and another recording device similar to the one placed in the conference room.
Chicago police say DNA ties a former detective to decades-old unsolved killing of 8-year-old girl
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police say DNA evidence ties one of their former homicide detectives to the decades-old murder of an 8-year-old girl who was abducted as she was walking to church more than 65 years ago.
Gloria Kowalewicz was found shot dead in a ditch in 1960, just hours after she went missing. Chicago police say new technology allowed them to match a fingerprint and DNA from the crime scene to Thomas F. McInerney Jr., then a detective working on violent crimes.
“McInerney should never have worn the CPD star, and it is devastating to accept that he was never identified and held accountable while he was alive,” police said in a statement provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Gloria was walking just a few blocks from her home to a morning Mass on Nov. 12, 1960, but she never made it, according to police. She was found around four hours later, her body dumped in a forest preserve in southwest Chicago.
Authorities formed a task force to investigate. They “knocked on hundreds of doors,” interviewed more than 1,300 people and questioned more than a dozen people under polygraph, according to the statement.
Police collected and preserved a bullet, Gloria’s coat and shoes, and a white communion purse that held her prayer book. Using modern forensic technology and with assistance from the FBI and Illinois State Police, investigators linked DNA found on those items and a “carefully preserved” fingerprint lifted from Gloria’s purse strap to McInerney.
The FBI said in a statement to The AP that it was “pursuing every investigative lead that may bring closure on other potential unsolved crimes that occurred during that time period in our area.”
The technology used to identify McInerney allows federal and local law enforcement agencies to compare evidence with genetic profiles on genealogical websites. It was previously used to identify the Golden State Killer more than four decades after the case was first opened by identifying DNA from a tissue left in a trash can. The technology has prompted privacy concerns.
McInerney joined the Chicago Police Department a year before the murder and retired in 1987, police said. He then worked for the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Reno and Las Vegas until he retired in 2004, according to a Chicago Tribune obituary. He died in 2006.
Washington
FBI arrests OpenAI employee accused of placing recording device in company conference room
WASHINGTON (AP) — An engineer at OpenAI has been charged with secretly installing a recording device inside a conference room in what officials said Tuesday was an effort to capture sensitive conversations about the company’s technology.
The employee, identified as a 35-year-old Saudi national named Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested Friday, a week after the ChatGPT maker discovered an audio recording device hidden inside a company conference room, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco.
The complaint did not identify the company, but the company confirmed in a separate statement that it had discovered a “sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices,” reported the finding to the FBI and fired the employee.
“We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work,” an OpenAI spokesperson said.
“At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated,” the statement said.
The complaint does not detail what Alfozan might have wanted to do with any captured communications, but the company said the device was sophisticated, designed to evade detection and featured advanced encryption and audio monitoring capabilities. OpenAI said it had evidence the employee planned to place other listening devices throughout other parts of the office building for the purpose of recording meetings.
“This alleged attempt by a Saudi national to steal sensitive communications from OpenAI was taken extremely seriously. Theft of intellectual property involving cutting-edge super intelligence technology poses a serious threat to our national security,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement on X.
Alfozan made his first court appearance Tuesday on a charge of using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf. He is due back in court on Oct. 19.
The recording device was found September 30 concealed in toilet paper and inserted into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room, according to the complaint.
Though the conference room where the recording device was found did not have a security camera at the time the object was installed, closed-circuit television footage inside the company’s offices revealed that Alfozan was near the conference room on nearly a dozen occasions last month despite not having any authority to access the space or participate in meetings there, the complaint says.
The company subsequently added a camera to the room that last week captured Alfozan entering and checking behind the television where the recording device had been installed, according to the FBI.
The complaint also alleges that he used a productivity tool to make multiple inquiries about the company’s building addresses, meeting rooms, meeting-room capacities and calendars.
Days before his arrest last week, the complaint says, Alfozan left behind an unattended bag in a different room that, when opened by OpenAI personnel, was found to contain his wallet, identification and another recording device similar to the one placed in the conference room.
