GAGE PARK, Ill., Feb. 4 (UPI) — Authorities in southwest Chicago launched a murder investigation Thursday after the discovery of six bodies at a home there belonging to five adults and one child ─ all of whom appear to have been stabbed to death, police said.
A concerned co-worker of one of the victims, a woman, telephoned police when she went two days without seeing her. When officers responded to the home, in Gage Park, they found her body along with those of four men and a preteen child, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The discovery was made around 1 p.m. local time, officials said, and it appears that all six victims were stabbed to death.
“We are in shock,” one relative said.
Police did not immediately identify the victims pending notification of family members.
Authorities said at a news conference Thursday that responding officers entered the home after one of them peered in a window and sighted what looked like a body lying on the floor inside.
CBS Chicago reported that some of the victims had been tied up in the home before they were stabbed.
Investigators aren’t sure how long the victims were dead before police found them, but one neighbor said she knocked on the door to the home Wednesday and got no answer. The neighbor also said the curtains in the home were all shut, which she found unusual.
Chicago Police Superintendent John Escalante said there is no danger to the surrounding community and the violence was contained to just the one home. He also said police don’t know much yet about the circumstances of the homicides.
“This is going to take some time,” he said.
