CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - Chicago police are interviewing a person of interest in their death investigation of a body found in a Northwest Side freezer on Monday.
The discovery was a body, in a freezer. Police said a 96-year-old woman’s decomposed body was found in a garage behind a red brick two-flat, on 5529 W. Melrose in the Portage Park community.
Chicago police said the woman was identified by a relative as Regina Michalski.
Neighbors said police escorted Michalski’s daughter away from the property minutes after discovering the body. The mother and daughter had lived together for years on the first floor of the two-flat, and the daughter was the building’s landlord, neighbors said.
But those same neighbors said they hadn’t seen Michalski in several years.
The daughter had told conflicting stories in recent months: that her mother was in a nursing home in another state; that she was still living at home and doing fine; that she’d died.
Hector Ramirez and his family live next door and told CBS-2 the community is in shock.
"I just want to find out what happened. It’s messed up honestly, especially that it’s right next to us,” Ramirez said.
One of Michalski’s grandchildren, Diane Michalski, lives in Niles. She told the Sun-Times that she used to live above her grandmother at the West Melrose address.
Diane Michalski said her grandmother was a Polish immigrant who spent most of her life working for Motorola.
“I remember being a kid and she’d bring some work home and show me the little technology and all the little intricate details that she had to do for her job,” Michalski said. “I mean, if you want to talk about women in STEM, she was it.”
Michalski, who said she hadn’t seen her grandmother or aunt in 20 years, added: “She didn’t deserve to go that way.”
Police removed the freezer with Michalski’s body inside and took it the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
(The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.)
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