Indiana Police: Dismembered Body Found In Hegewisch Might Be Missing Man
Updated 10/6/14 - 5:44 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Police in Indiana suspect a dismembered body found in a garage in Chicago's Hegewisch neighborhood belong to a man who disappeared more than a year-and-a-half ago.
Chicago police were conducting an investigation after finding the body Sunday afternoon in the 13300 block of South Avenue M, after neighbors smelled a foul odor coming from the garage and alley, and then called police.
The Cook County Medical Examiner says the manner of death was homicide - and that an autopsy showed the man died from "multiple gunshot wounds to the head."
Investigators arrived at the scene at 3:20 p.m. Sunday. Sources said the victim's body had been dismembered and wrapped in plastic.
Neighbors said the victim's friends broke down the garage door, looking for their loved one, and discovered the body.
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Authorities have not yet identified the remains, but police in Fowler, Indiana, suspect the body belongs to Milan Lekich, who was last seen in March 2013.
Fowler Police Patrolman Dan Moyars said Lekich once lived at the home in Hegewisch where the dismembered body was found.
Moyars said the case is "one that Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot should be working on. To us, it's like something right out of a TV set."
Chicago police issued a missing person alert for Lekich last week, and indicated his case might be related to the disappearance of his mother-in-law, Nena Metoyer, who also has been reported missing.
Metoyer has been missing for two weeks, after flying from her home in Tampa, Florida, to Fowler to care for her ailing daughter, who was married to Lekich.
Metoyer's daughter, Teresa Jarding, 49, was found in her home in Fowler on Sept. 24, after police conducted a well-being check. She died of natural causes the next day.
Metoyer was not at the home when police arrived, and there was no sign of her at her home in Florida, either.
Moyars said police in Fowler were waiting to hear more details from their counterparts in Chicago, to perhaps get more clues on how everything might fit together.
