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Gacy was executed in 1994. Investigators said Gacy lived near O'Hare. As a young white man who worked in construction and disappeared from the airport in 1977, Szal fit Gacy's victim profile, investigators said. Authorities used a computer database to find Szal living in Beaverton, Ore., and a local police officer visited his apartment Monday to confirm his identity. Cook County officials say his relatives were told Tuesday that he is alive. "Being able to tell an 88-year-old father that his son, whose picture he has been carrying around for 34 years in his breast pocket, has been found alive is something special," Sheriff Thomas Dart said in a statement. Reached by phone, Szal's father said he didn't feel well and declined to comment. Szal said he was pleased to learn his parents are still alive. Even before his name was publicly linked to the serial killer, Szal had taken an interest in the Gacy case and had even read some books about it. He can understand why some would suspect connections to his disappearance, he said, but it never occurred him. A carpenter, Szal is now working on starting a building maintenance business. Finally reconnecting -- facing his emotions and his feelings of betrayal -- feels like a "horrible weight" has been lifted, he said. "We've had some tough Christmases just because it's hard not to be depressed," Szal said. "So this year there's a little light shining on us now."
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