Neighbor Charged In Man's Beating Death On Northwest Side
UPDATED 09/16/11 8:01 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Authorities have charged a man with beating his neighbor to death in the Northwest Side's Gladstone Park neighborhood earlier this week.
Daniel Tyler, 34, of the 5300 block of North Northwest Highway, is charged with first-degree murder. He is also charged with three more counts stemming from his arrest – aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and attempting to disarm a police officer, a police source said.
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Tyler is charged with the murder of Michael Justo, 56, who lived in a house on the same block.
Justo's body was found around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday on the floor of his basement.
Neighbors say Justo was killed after someone broke into his home earlier in the day. After the burglary at noon Tuesday, police came to the house, took a report, and left.
Before he was killed, Justo told his wife the he thought the burglar was a man he knew from the neighborhood, police said.
While Tyler was being arrested in connection with Justo's murder, they noticed he had intentionally cut himself, so they took him to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said.
While hospitalized, Tyler allegedly hit a female nurse with a glass shelf, leaving her with a wound that required 38 stitches, police said. When a police officer tried to stop Tyler, he allegedly punched a police officer in the face and tried to take the officer's gun, Alfaro said.
Tyler remained hospitalized with self-inflicted wounds Friday morning, police said.
Justo was laid off from a city job driving a truck at O'Hare International Airport, said his former wife, Nicole Justo. He previously worked for ComEd, she said.
Nicole Justo said she and her former husband had three children together. Michael Justo also had two step-children from his current marriage, she said.
"He always helped his older neighbors shovel their snow," Nicole Justo said, adding that he loved to go boating. "He had a good heart."
Court information for Tyler was not immediately available.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
