Neighbor Held In NW Side Man's Beating Death
CHICAGO (STMW) – A suspect is being questioned in the death of a Northwest Side man, found fatally beaten Tuesday in his home, where Chicago Police took a burglary report earlier in the day.
Early Thursday, Grand-Central Area detectives were interviewing a suspect in the Tuesday slaying of Michael Justo, 56, a law-enforcement source said.
Charges are pending against the suspect, according to News Affairs Officer Daniel Sullivan.
The suspect is a neighbor in his 30s who allegedly made incriminating statements, according to a police source.
The home was burglarized about noon Tuesday, officials said. Police took a report and left, and Justo, 56, told his wife the suspected the burglar was a neighborhood man he knew, a source said.
Detectives were interviewing the man Justo fingered as the possible burglar, the source said.
Justo was found dead at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday in the gangway of his home in the 5300 block of North Northwest Highway. He suffered massive trauma to the head, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.
An autopsy on Thursday found Justo died of multiple injuries from an assault and his death was ruled a homicide, the medical examiner's office said.
Justo was laid off from a city job driving a truck at O'Hare Airport, his former wife Nicole Justo told the Sun-Times. He previously worked for ComEd.
"He always helped his older neighbors shovel their snow," Nicole Justo said, adding that he loved to go boating. "He had a good heart."
