CHICAGO — Police are asking for help in identifying a young woman found strangled and badly burned in an Avondale trash bin Sunday night.
Firefighters found her body as they extinguished a fire in the trash bin in the 3100 block of North Kimball Avenue about 11:55 p.m. Sunday. The woman, who is 17 to 30 years old, suffered burns over most of her body, police said.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office ruled her death a homicide and determined she had died from strangulation.
The burned trash bin sat in the alley in the 3100 block of North Kimball Avenue Tuesday morning, and neighbors said they still were shocked to hear a murder had happened so close to home.
Jim Miller, who lives in the building in front of where the body was found, said he has heard of people getting robbed or beaten up now and then in the neighborhood, but not anything as grisly as murder.
"I've never heard of anything like that, and I've lived here for 28 years," Miller said.
Miller said he was asleep when firefighters found the body but his neighbors told him the next day.
"When I first heard there was a body involved, I was awake half the night," Miller said.
Goldie Hutcherson said she moved to her home in the 3100 block of North Kimball Avenue five months ago. She said she has felt safe in the neighborhood but the murder reminds her what a dangerous place Chicago is in general.
"It's the world we live in," Hutcherson said. "These things can happen anywhere, anytime. I just don't trust people."
Police described the slain woman as white or Hispanic with an olive complexion, 5 feet 3 inches tall and 120 pounds. She had straight, medium-length brown hair with possible red highlights.
Police are asking anyone with information to call detectives at 312-744-8261.
The woman was wearing a blue shirt with a pink bra and had a hoop earring in her right ear along with a tongue piercing, police said.
