Lloyd Luna, 66, was found dead with his throat cut inside an apartment in the 4100 block of West Adams Street in West Garfield Park, on Chicago's West Side, about 2:20 p.m. on Tuesday, March 20, 2018. The Chicago Police Department investigated his death as a homicide.
Authorities said he was found inside the apartment, and the Chicago Sun-Times reported that his throat had been cut. The Chicago Tribune reported that he had stab wounds and blunt force injuries. An autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner's office found that he died of sharp and blunt force injuries, and his death was ruled a homicide. Public reports do not say who found him, when he was last seen alive or how long he had been dead.
For more than two weeks, the medical examiner's office withheld his name while trying to notify his family.
On Thursday, April 5, 2018, it released his name publicly in the hope that someone who knew him would come forward, and the Tribune reported that authorities were looking for his next of kin. No suspect description, motive, person of interest or reward was made public in the coverage found for this account.
That search for family may never have been answered. A Cook County medical examiner's list of indigent cremations includes Lloyd Luna, 66, male, under case number ME2018-01427, which indicates that the county arranged his cremation rather than a family or funeral home. No obituary, memorial page or funeral notice for him could be found. He may have had friends, neighbors or acquaintances on the West Side who never learned what happened to him.
The 4100 block of West Adams Street lies in West Garfield Park, near Pulaski Road, on the city's West Side. The neighborhood takes its name from the large park just to the east and is made up mostly of apartment buildings, two-flats and greystones. Other tenants, neighbors and people who knew who came and went from the apartment in the days before March 20 may have seen or heard something.
Chicago recorded about 580 homicides in 2018 and about 500 the following year. Most were shootings; deaths from stabbings and beatings, like this one, made up a much smaller share. Chicago police later reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
Old cases can still move forward. Brandon Porter-Young, an 18-year-old Whitney Young High School senior with autism, was stabbed to death at a West Side hotel on February 2, 2018. Nearly a year later, in January 2019, Chicago police charged a man with murder after DNA evidence linked him to the killing.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Lloyd Luna could be found in news archives or public records. More than 8 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Lloyd Luna, rented to him, shared a building with him or saw him in the days before he was found may be able to help, both in solving his killing and in telling his story. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Chicago Police Department's anonymous tip line at (833) 408-0069 or submit a tip online at CPDTIP.com, or contact Cook County Crime Stoppers at (800) 535-STOP (7867).
