Chicago Couple Found Buried Alive Under Mounds of Trash

Police found the couple in critical condition
Aggregate Sources

CHICAGO — Fire crews investigating a mysterious stench found an elderly couple buried alive under mounds of garbage in their Chicago home, authorities said Tuesday. Police declined to identify the couple.

The couple, a 75-year-old woman and her 76-year-old husband, who police described as hoarders, was discovered Monday during a forced-entry well-being check requested by a neighbor. The fire department team forced in the door of the South Side home and found an overpowering smell, piles of food waste and trash. Personnel had to wear hazardous-materials suits to deal with the debris, as the odor was overpowering. Police Lt. Dale Kingsley said that the residence "was packed from floor to ceiling."

Police had initially been called to the two-flat apartment building by neighbors who had not seen the couple in some time and wondered about their welfare. No one had heard from the couple in three weeks. Police called in the fire department because of the stench and the team that entered wore hazardous materials suits.

The Tribune reported that the woman appeared to have suffered rat bites, and the couple was taken to the hospital in critical condition. A spokesman for Jackson Park Hospital, Margo Brooks, said the two were admitted and remained listed in critical condition at noon Tuesday, but that their conditions have improved.
The woman may have fallen through the trash first and become trapped. Her husband may have tried to help her and seemed to have become trapped as well.

An 83-year-old neighbor, Hattie Fields, said the couple had lived in the building for years. "I've been here since 1965 and I can't remember if they were here then or not," she said.

She said that she used to see the woman sitting on the front porch as she walked by but no longer could because the hedges had not been trimmed for years and had grown level with the second floor of the building, obscuring the view.

She said she was fairly certain that no one else lived in the building, although there were unoccupied apartments on the first floor and in the basement. She said signs of neglect were obvious. "The back yard is also full of debris," she said. She said she used to see the man going out and getting in his truck to go to work in the morning, although not lately.

A neighbor, Cleopatra Ingram, said, "I thought it was an abandoned building actually. Someone should have checked on them. You'd walk past and there was no one there at all."

City building inspector Lauren Mosley photographs the kitchen of a house where a couple in their 70s was found buried under mounds of trash on Chicago's South Side. Police Lt. Dale Kingsley said their home was "packed from floor to ceiling" with garbage and may have to be condemned.