Could the 1975 disappearance case of a Chicago man be linked to serial killer John Wayne Gacy?
The family of Roger Aguirre said this week marks 49 years since he vanished on the city’s Northwest Side and they’re hoping to get to the bottom of what happened to him decades later.
“It’s just been terrible you know,” Aguirre’s sister Carol Erickson said. “If I could just get a yes or no, is my brother still living? Did he just walk out of our lives? I don’t think so.”
Though more than four decades have passed since Aguirre disappeared, his family remains committed to finding answers regarding his sudden disappearance.
“It’s just like a big question mark, I can feel it inside of me,” Erickson said. “There’s this big question mark—is he or isn’t he deceased?”
His half-sister Erickson and half-niece Mary Franco are trying to bring renewed attention to his case, working with “Light the Way” to create and share a missing persons flyer on social media.
“For my mom, she’s 80 years old. She deserves to find out what happened to her brother,” Franco said.
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They’re also pleading and looking to reconnect with a friend of Aguirre's to see if he's still alive or knew information regarding his disappearance.
“I just found it really odd that we never heard from him, he never called, he never said, 'Hey, I can’t get a hold of Roger, has anybody talked to him?'” Franco said. “We never heard from him again either.”
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Erickson said her younger brother was last seen talking to a man in a red car in front of his apartment building in the 3000 block of West Wellington Avenue.
She and her daughter believe he may have been a possible victim of John Wayne Gacy given the circumstances.
“I was only 14 years old when my Uncle Roger disappeared and I do remember the minute when everything was all over the news about Gacy, that we all immediately thought that must be what happened to Uncle Roger,” Franco said.
Roger, who was 23 years old at the time, would often hang out with friends near the intersection of North Clark Street and West Diversey Avenue, according to family.
“Considering his lifestyle and then later hearing about John Wayne Gacy and all these people that he had killed—it just seems likely,” Erickson said.
Five of Gacy's victims remain unidentified as of November 2024. Erickson previously submitted her DNA sample to the Cook County Sheriff's Office in 2019, though the results came back inconclusive.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the results and the need for further testing. The office issued a statement:
“Initial tests of Ms. Erickson’s DNA were inconclusive and required testing of a closely related maternal relative of Mr. Aguirre. Unfortunately, the process has been delayed due to operational and funding issues experienced by the lab that the Sheriff’s Office uses to conduct the complex and intensive DNA testing required in these types of cases. The investigation into the identities of the remaining unidentified Gacy victims is ongoing, and the Sheriff’s Office will work with Ms. Erickson to obtain a sample from another relative when lab testing is secured.”
No matter how long it takes, Erickson said she won’t have peace until her brother is put to rest.
“I said someday little brother, I will find you I will and I would like to be able to keep that promise,” Erickson said.
