Police: 6 dead in Chicago home in possible murder-suicide

CHICAGO (AP) – Chicago police on Thursday found the bodies of four men, one woman and a child inside a home on the city’s South Side in what they say could be a murder-suicide, even as they added extra patrols in the neighborhood.

Standing in the street in the neat, well-tended Gage Park neighborhood, interim police Superintendent John Escalante told reporters that police checked the house Thursday afternoon after receiving a call from a co-worker worried about someone who lived there. The person had missed two days of work, which was “highly unusual and very suspicious,” Escalante said.

Police arrived at the single-family brick home just after 1 p.m. They looked inside and saw one body, entered and found five more bodies. The bodies had signs of trauma, but authorities have not determined the cause of death.

Authorities were still working to identify the dead. Escalante said it’s probable they were all family members. The child is thought to be 10 to 12 years old. Police are trying to locate other relatives, Escalante said.

“At this time we don’t believe that there is any threat to the surrounding community or any known threat right now to the immediate neighborhood,” Escalante said. “This is going to be an investigation that is going to take some time.”

In the neighborhood, Rosa De La Torre’s 13-year-old son comforted her as she sat down and sobbed near the home of her friend, whom she thought could be among the victims.

Another neighbor, Lettie Magas, 68, lamented what she said has been an increase in crime in recent years.

“I feel safe as long as it’s daylight out but I won’t come out at night, no way,” Magas said.