Two adult siblings told authorities their mother and sister could be buried in the back garden.
The investigation began after the water company alerted police that no water had been used at the 3900 block of Center Avenue. The use of gas and electricity had also been minimal.
Upon arrival they found a serious case of hoarding. The house contained jars full of urine and piles of possessions along the two-story house, as well as several cats and dogs running around the property.
“It was several liters of urine,” said Thomas Herion, Lyon’s police chief. “There were no toilets in operation. All the rooms, the front door and the back door were completely barricaded with rubbish, boxes.”
Neighbors also mentioned that they had not seen any of the brothers living there for days.
“From Sunday to today,” Herion said. “We know there’s a million degrees here, so we started worrying maybe they had passed.”
Police said he spoke to two men who lived there, brothers, who said they were mentally ill. They told police they used a side window in the house to come and go because the doors would not open.
“He said he had another brother upstairs who had health issues,” Herion said.
The brothers told police their mother was pushed down the stairs by her sister in December 2015 and died the following week from a head injury. Police said he was about 70 years old. The brothers said their sisters fell ill and died in 2019. Police said he was 42 years old.
“Where are they? He indicated they were buried in the backyard, he said, ‘Oh, they got sick, they died, and we buried them in the backyard,'” Herion said.
The state of Illinois has no record of his death. Police said all evidence indicates the bodies were in the yard; they have no evidence that their mother is in Connecticut or that the sister is with another family.
The siblings said his father had died in 2012 and that he had been cremated.
On Friday, police called for more help, including an archaeologist, for the extremely tedious task of emptying the house and looking for evidence of what happened inside and sifting the dirt in the garden.
“We will have to bring in expert crews to empty this residence,” Chief Herion said. “We will have detectives outside as items come out of the house. Each test will need to be evaluated as read and determine if it is valuable or not.”
The two brothers were taken to a hospital for a physical and mental evaluation, but have not been arrested. But that could change if evidence of human remains is found Saturday, as concealing a death is a Class 4 felony in Illinois.
“We don’t know if we have bodies, if we have good information, bad information, it’s a preliminary investigation and it’s an ongoing investigation,” Herion said.
But the process of excavating bodies is complex, with many unknowns.
“They take out rubbish, put it in the sieves, filter it to find any kind of evidence and pass it by hand with very slow and methodical steps,” he said.
The chief said the brothers were released two hours after being cared for for mental control, which came as a surprise. Now the city pays for them to stay in a hotel while the investigation continues.
The Lyon police department is collaborating with the Cook County state attorney to initiate an investigation.
Police said they are currently treating this as a homicide investigation, but warned the brothers could tell the truth.
Copyright © 2021 WLS-TV. All rights reserved.