Human Bones Found In Abandoned Car In Forest Park: Cops

FOREST PARK, IL — Human bones found in a tarped car in Forest Park may be those of a homicide victim, police said. The bones were found last month, packed in a container that was locked inside the vehicle. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office has determined the bones to be human remains.

The grisly discovery was made around 7:50 p.m. June 28 in the 1000 block of Lathrop Avenue, according to the Forest Park Police Department. A resident rented a parking space to the vehicle’s owner who apparently abandoned it on the property.

The owner of the parking space had arranged to have the car towed off the property, Chief Tom Aftanas said. The resident broke the window to clean out the car and observed a garbage can in the back seat. The garbage can contained what appeared to be skeletal remains.

“It’s possible that it is a homicide, and we are considering it a homicide,” Aftanas told the Cook County Chronicle. “It’s not normal when you find human remains in a closed container.”

At this time, the age, sex and cause of death of the remains has not been determined. The medical examiner said it could take up to a month to identify the deceased. Forest Park police and the West Suburban Major Crimes Task Force are investigating. Aftanas said that investigators are waiting to see if the human remains can be identified, reported Jean Lotus of the Cook County Chronicle. .

Neighbors said the car had been parked in the spot long-term, always covered by a tarp.

“I remember that car being there under the tarp for years,” Forest Park resident Thomas Flanagan told the Chronicle. “In the winter, there were cinder blocks on the tarp to keep it from blowing off.”

The night the bones were discovered, 15 police officers converged on the scene. The vehicle is an older model sedan, possibly an Oldsmobile in poor condition. It’s still a mystery how long the bones had possibly been in the car.