Car With Body Inside Pulled From Little Calumet River; License Plates Match Those Of Man Who Had Been Missing Since Saturday
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A car with a body inside was pulled from the Little Calumet River on the city's Far South Side Thursday afternoon.
As CBS 2's Charlie De Mar reported, the identity of the person found dead in the car had not been confirmed as of Thursday night. But the license plates match those of a man who has been missing since the weekend.
Friends of the man said it was the missing man inside, and something is not adding up.
Police on Tuesday put out a missing persons alert for Darris Johnson, 50, who was missing from the 9300 block of South Peoria Street.
Daryl Brown and Arnold Shead are good friends of Johnson's and had been looking for him since Saturday. He was last seen leaving a party at 8:15 p.m. that night.
"Things just aren't adding up right now," Brown said.
"He left a party healthy; made phone calls," Shead said.
"When he was last seen, there's no reason for him to come this direction. He lives in the exact opposite direction," Brown added.
Around 1:52 a.m. Thursday, someone called police and said a white vehicle headed west in the 100 block of East 130th Street went into the river. At that time, police conducted a search and did not find anything.
"Apparently, they didn't look good enough," Shead said.
But at 3 p.m., police Marine United divers found the car in the river at 130th Street and Indiana Avenue with a body inside.
"They came to this area already," Brown sad. "Why are they just finding him four days later?"
The license plate on the car pulled from the Little Calumet appears to match Johnson's plates.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's office will formally identify the person pulled
"We need to find out what happened to him," Shead said.
Johnson has a 13-year-old son. Friends and family called his disappearance very out of charcater for him.
Area Two detectives were investigating.