Gage Park stabbing: Audio between city police dispatcher and officer

Hours after six bodies were discovered Thursday in a Gage Park bungalow, Noemi Martinez waited by the phone nearly 1,000 miles away in Texas, still not sure whether the victims were family members her husband had just visited over Christmas.
"This is shocking, and I don’t know what to think,” she said. “We’re trying to find out what’s going on.”
Finally, about four hours after police found the bodies of five adults and one child around 10 years old, Martinez was resigned to the idea that they were her relatives. But she still had many questions about what happened inside the brick bungalow in the 5700 block of South California Avenue.
“We’re still trying to figure it all out,” she said through tears. “We don’t know what happened.”
Police say the six victims were found throughout the home around 1:05 p.m. after a co-worker of a man who lived there called 911, police said. The victims appeared to have been stabbed, but police were waiting for autopsies.
The co-worker told police the man had not shown up for work Wednesday or Thursday, interim police Superintendent John Escalante said at a news conference near the home. From outside, an officer saw "what they believed to be a body" inside on the floor, he said. The officers entered and discovered the bodies in different locations in the home.


Escalante said there were "signs of trauma to the bodies.” Responding to a reporter's question, Escalante said there was no indication anyone inside had committed suicide, though police had not ruled out anything.
Investigators were being careful and thorough as they “collect as much evidence as possible," he said.
The Chicago Lawn District added patrols in the area, but Escalante said he did not think there was a threat to the community. The deaths were "contained within the residence," he said, without explaining.
Martinez said a couple in their 60s lived downstairs in the bungalow with their son, in his 40s. Their daughter, in her 30s, lived on the second floor with her two children, one around 9 and the other in his teens.
Martinez said by phone that she feared the entire family was dead, but she was having problems getting answers from police. Her description of the family -- one matched by neighbors -- does not match the description of victims given by police, who said five adults and one child had been found slain.
Police could not explain the discrepancy Thursday night.
Martinez said she and her husband planned to drive to Chicago as soon as possible. "My husband's mother is distraught. She has lost her brother. She's here in Texas, so we're driving her there as soon as we can. The police said they need us."
The father of the two children who lived in the house is in Mexico, Martinez said.
She described the grandparents as devoted to their children and grandchildren. The grandmother "was always a stay-at-home wife and mother who loved taking care of her grandkids," Martinez said.  Their son "treated those boys like they were his own. They were his nephews, but people thought they were his sons. He was close to them."
Through the years, the grandparents allowed relatives to stay in their spacious house until they could get on their feet. Martinez said she and her husband had stayed there.
"We were close because we were together," she said. "My husband was just there with them for Christmas. He had a good time, and was just chilling with his uncle and cousins. Nothing seemed to be wrong.
"They were great people, and we don't know who would want to harm them," she said. "Our entire family is in shock, and we can't believe this happened."
A neighbor across the alley, Orlando Almanza, said his 13-year-old son played with the older of two boys. They went to school together at Carson Elementary School.
"Those kids played soccer in the alley a lot," he said. "My son played with them a couple times."
Teens on the block said they played with the older boy but hadn't seen him in a few days.
"I was wondering when he was coming back," said a classmate, Aaron Villazana, 13. "Last time we saw him was Monday, and he left after an early dismissal. He was kind of sad-looking and I asked him why was he sad and he said he was just tired."
Another classmate, Jesus Andrade, 13, said he noticed the older boy acting out of character lately when he tried speaking with him as he walked in the neighborhood.  "He was just quiet, with his head down and not listening to what I was saying," Jesus said.
The older boy had recently gotten his photograph taken for graduation at Carson Middle School. He enjoyed playing soccer and competed in a youth league on the Chicago Red Wings.
Down the block, Rosa De La Torre wept on the porch of a home just outside the police tape after she spoke with investigators. One of the victims was her friend, the police confirmed to her.
Her son Hugo De La Torre, 13, said she had been calling family members asking if they'd heard from the woman after news broke about the bodies being discovered.
"My mom is just really sad because one of her friends is the victim," Hugo said.
Another neighbor, Markita Williams, told reporters she knocked on the door Wednesday to get someone to move a van on the street but got no answer.  She said her son was a friend of a child who lived in the home.
The block is lined with bungalows, most of them red brick. Gage Park High School is a few blocks away.
Lisa Adams, 31, lives about half a block from where the bodies were found.  She moved on the block from Richton Park about 2 1/2 years ago.
"Never had any problems," she said. "It's quiet over here. No problems. No shootings. None of that.
"I thought a construction worker had gotten hurt at first," she said, because work is being done on the street.
As police expanded the crime scene, students and families were guided around the tape.
Later, when crowds thinned and eventually dispersed, Chicago police detectives combed through the back alley, peering into garbage cans and shining a flashlight in behind the home.
When a van arrived around 8 p.m. to bring taking the bodies away, an evidence technician in a white jumpsuit lifted open the door to the garage behind the home. Workers then carried a white body bag on a stretcher from the garage to the back of the van.