Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Breaking News: Decomposing Body Found In Uptown Sewer

From the Chicago Tribune:

A decomposing body was pulled from a sewer on the North Side this morning, police said.

The body was discovered in the 4500 block of North Clarendon Avenue on the border of the Uptown and Buena Park neighborhoods.

No further details were immediately available.

Update: A reader tells us: "The location is in the park in the playground area near the field house. It's the sewer drain underneath where the kids play in the water on hot days. There is a large number of police there."

Update #2: "As of 1:00 p.m., police forensics is on the scene and a large section of the East side of Clarendon Park is still police taped off. Fox News is taking video so watch that news station for the official crime story and police statements."

Update #3: A reader just sent us a photo from the scene in the play lot (added above).

18 comments:

  1. wow. I walk past there all the time. I live at 4600 N Clarendon. I will be very interested to hear more.

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  2. My first thought was 'Was it Shiller?" Then I thought no, the rats would have thrown her outta there immediatly.

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  3. Wow! That's some pretty impressive hate there Crew Dude.

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  4. I was at Alderman Shiller's office around 1pm today, and someone from her office staff told me that the body was a woman, but that they had no other details yet.

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  5. I second that marcus, RIGHT ON Crew Dude!!!

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  6. After Maratta Walker's murder, I hope that it is not another homicide of a disabled person in our community. Likewise, I hope it is not a homeless person who was trying to make a home in the sewers. (Is that even possible here? I may be too NYC for my own good.)

    On another note, Amy, what was going on at the Alderman's office today? What fabulous things are they working on?

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  7. Oh nice... That's right across the street from my building at 4520. Did you notice our new awnings and siding?? Lipstick on a Pig..What's that smell??

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  8. I just got back a little while ago from the area. I went and took pictures. I spoke briefly to who I was told was the Alderman's assistant, however she did not introduce herself to me.

    When the wind blew in the right direction, you could smell the body.

    They had the scene pretty well cordoned off, so it was hard to see close up what was going on. As they got closer to extracting the body, they draped tarps and cloths over the fence and set up black screens to prevent onlookers from seeing the actual body. They towed a Mercedes out of the way so that a fire truck could back in to the park and extend its boom ladder over the fence. I believe they are going to use this to hoist the body out of the drain.

    There were a lot of police and fire men on the scene, and from the looks of things the coroner and several detectives. There was several people smoking cigars either out of personal habit or as I suspect to help cover up the odor. Cigar smoke is supposedly good for that.

    There were rumors flying around about what was down there, but I have no idea what is true and what isn't. I will paraphrase some of the things I heard:

    --A male cop remarked that who ever was down there was probably put down there because those grates are heavy. If you die in a sewer, you are certainly no saint, you must have done something bad.

    --A female cop remarked that the body looked like it had been down there for two weeks.

    --The street and sidewalk cleaning crew people said that it was a large woman. It was later remarked that it may have been a woman who looked large because she was swollen up.

    --The fox affiliate camera guy told me that it was reported about 10:30 this morning by plumbers. It was also reported by the street and sidewalk cleaning crew people who noticed the smell.

    --A neighbor from the building across the street said her kids saw a naked guy jumping into the sewer the other day and were scared to go back to the park. (not sure about that one)

    --One of the fire fighters/police said in a huddle something to the effect of "they don't teach you this sort of thing in school"

    There wasn't much more to see so I left, but I sure want to read more about it in the news. I hope they give us more information.

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  9. I was at the alderman's office to get new parking permits for the maryville lot, not much else. After I got the permits, I asked if there was any "new news" about Clarendon Park, and the woman I talked to was pretty forthcoming.

    Earlier that morning ('round 10:30), I saw the police starting to put out the yellow tape, saw the director for the park, Mike, and asked him what was going on. He said that city/park district plumbers had come in to do routine maintenance and found the body.

    Poor Mike, he was really shaken up-- I really like what he tries to do at the fieldhouse, and this was certainly not what he expected to see this morning. Ditto for those plumbers!

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  10. Well I gotta hope the woman died somewhere else nonviolently and that her body was dumped there. Kinda doubt it though.

    Not a good story or a good way to leave this life.

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  11. ***My first thought was 'Was it Shiller?" Then I thought no, the rats would have thrown her outta there immediatly****

    Ouch! Mildly humerous about the rats, but a little harsh even for this site!

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  12. I hope they get to the bottom of this. It's got me spooked a little bit. Every now and then Uptown will lull you into a sense of security, but then something awful like this jolts you back to the freaky reality of this twisted neighborhood.

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  13. This Sun Times story
    contains a few more details, but not much. I really want to know what happened here. Was this a murder in the park, was the body dumped? I am probably just impatient, but I hope that the Trib or the Sun Times actually reports just what in the hell happened.

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  14. Is it odd that, whenever I look in the Chicago Tribune for news about the bad things that happen in Uptown, I never find anything? I scanned the online edition and did several searches for updates to the article in this post. I found nothing. Not even a linked to the "breaking news" article.

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  15. anyone have any updates on this story?

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  16. I have still heard no more about this incident. I have been scanning and searching both the trib and the sun-times and I get nothing.

    The fox affiliate left the other day before they ever got a statement from police.

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  17. Andy, tonight at CAPS the sergeant said the victim was a male and there is no homicide investigation. The police say the victim was seen undressing and going into the sewer under his own power.

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  18. Trumansq, was he mentally ill? Why would someone want to strip down and go in the sewer? And, he wasn't head first?

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