An investigation is underway after a 50-year-old man died was found dead in a basement apartment after a fire early Monday in North Lawndale — and his missing car was found about a mile and a half away.
About 5:25 a.m., Monday police and firefighters were called to a residential building fire in the 1300 block of South Millard Avenue, police said.
After the blaze was extinguished, firefighters found the unidentified 50-year-old man unresponsive inside a basement apartment, police said. He was dead at the scene, having been burned over his entire body, according to a police report.
He also had blood on his chest and blood coming from his ears and mouth. His vehicle was missing from the scene, according to the report, which said no accelerants were found in the apartment. Autopsy results were not immediately available.
Investigators located the victim’s vehicle in the 1600 block of South California Avenue, on the other side of Douglass Park and about a dozen blocks to the east. They also recovered video footage showing that, at 4:52 a.m. Monday, someone wiped down the inside and outside of the car, then walked away west through the park, the report said.
No one was displaced by the fire, and no additional injuries were reported, according to police.