Death of man burned in West Side fire, shot in head ruled homicide
Oct 13, 2026
An investigation is underway after firefighters extinguishing an apartment fire in North Lawndale found a 50-year-old man dead from a gunshot wound — and his missing car was located about a mile and a half away.On Tuesday, an autopsy found he died of a gunshot wound to the head, not the fire, acco
rding to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, which ruled his death a homicide.Firefighters and police had responded about 5:25 a.m., to the report of a fire in a residential building fire in the 1300 block of South Millard Avenue, police said.After the blaze was extinguished, firefighters found the unidentified 50-year-old man unresponsive inside a basement apartment, police said. He was dead at the scene, and had been burned over his entire body, according to a police report. He also had blood on his chest and blood coming from his ears and mouth.His vehicle was missing from the scene, according to the report, which said no accelerants were found in the apartment. Investigators located the victim's vehicle in the 1600 block of South California Avenue, on the other side of Douglass Park and about a dozen blocks to the east. They also recovered video footage showing that, at 4:52 a.m. Monday, someone wiped down the inside and outside of the car, then walked away west through the park, the report said. No one was displaced by the fire, and no additional injuries were reported, according to police.
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