CHICAGO (AP) — The search for more victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy has led authorities to solve an unrelated 1970s cold case of a missing person linked to central Illinois, officials announced Thursday.

Chicago authorities have recently renewed efforts to identify more victims of Gacy, who is notorious for being one of the nation's most bizarre serial killers, mostly for his work as an amateur clown. Last year, the Cook County Sheriff's Office exhumed the remains of never-identified victims, prompting dozens of families of young men who disappeared in the 1970s to step forward.

That included the Noe family from Peoria, whose 22-year-old son went missing in 1978 while he was hitchhiking from Washington state where he lived back to Illinois.