John Wayne Gacy "Victim" Found Alive

For 33 years, his family feared the worst – that he might have been a victim of Chicago serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Turns out Harold Wayne Lovell was just living in Florida.

Lovell, 53, was reunited with his family this week after police finally tracked him down, decades after he failed to return from a construction job, Chicago's NBC affiliate reports.

Lovell says he didn't know his family thought he was dead. "It's very emotional, it still is," he said of the reunion. "It's been two days, and I'm still crying."

Though I'm not sure how one can disappear for 33 years and not think you may be considered dead, it's surprising that it happened. Gacy apparently tried to get Lovell to come into the house a few times, and he did not.  I'm not clear if he was assigned as one of the bodies recovered, which may mean that some physical remains have been misidentified.

Do not confuse this with the mother who is having her son exhumed to verify with DNA that he is truly her son.  As of this time there is no follow up on that, which hit the headlines on October 6.  When I read that article, I remember thinking surely not, the investigators would have been more thorough, right?

Now I read about Lovell and I realize that it could happen.