After 2 Women Turn Up Dead in Alleys, Teen Disappears

Residents of Chicago's Little Village demand answers amid fears for Azreya Lomeli, 15
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 24, 2023 10:05 AM CDT

Residents of Chicago's Little Village (La Villita) are demanding answers from police after the disappearance of three females, two of whom have turned up dead in alleys. Guatemalan migrant Reyna Cristina Ical Seb was found with a gunshot wound to the head in an alley in the Southwest Side neighborhood on Feb. 22—her 21st birthday, reports the Chicago Tribune. Then last week, the decomposing body of 21-year-old Rosa Chacón, who'd last been seen Jan. 18, was found in another alley roughly 1.5 miles away, per CBS News. The body was wrapped in a sheet in a shopping cart, family members and the private detective they hired after becoming frustrated by a lack of progress in the police investigation tell WLS. No arrests have been made in either case.

"Who did this? Why did they do this?" Chacón's older sister Elizabeth Bello said at a Wednesday press conference held outside a police station. "It is hard to believe and hard to comprehend that in the year 2023 we're still finding bodies of women and no answers," added community member Selene Partida. The discoveries have "left some residents living in fear," per WLS. And fear continues to mount. Community members say 15-year-old Little Village resident Azreya Lomeli hasn't been seen for a week. Described as 5 feet tall, 110 pounds, with short brown hair and brown eyes, she was last spotted walking in the area "after leaving a behavioral health hospital south of the city," per WLS. Her family was also present at Wednesday's press conference.

"We demand that [police] pay the same attention that would have done when somebody gets killed in Lakeview or in Wrigleyville or in the Gold Coast," said Baltazar Enriquez, president of the community council, per the Sun. "They put the best of the best out there, and here we have to do protests like this, to get the attention of the authorities." A police rep was unable to tell ABC News whether a missing person report had been filed for Azreya. The deaths remain under investigation but police do not believe they are related, per CBS. Ical Seb's Guatemalan family does not believe she was targeted, per the Tribune. The woman who'd promised to send money home to her indigenous community was apparently killed on her way home from work, a friend tells the outlet. (More murder stories.)

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