Rene Watkins, 60, was found stabbed to death inside a home in the 8700 block of South Marquette Avenue in the South Chicago community on the city's Southeast Side on Friday, April 6, 2018. Area South detectives of the Chicago Police Department investigated. The Sun-Times story on her death placed the home in the South Shore neighborhood, while the Sun-Times homicide tracker lists the community area as South Chicago.
About 10:50 a.m., officers went to the home for a well-being check, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office. When they arrived, they found Rene Watkins unresponsive and covered in blood. She was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy found that she died of multiple sharp force injuries, and her death was ruled a homicide. Public reports do not say who asked police to check on her or when she was last seen alive.
Police released little else.
No suspect description, motive, person of interest or reward was made public in the coverage found for this account, and the tracker names no suspect.
Little about Rene Watkins's life has been published. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser that can be tied with certainty to her could be found, and other women named Rene or Renee Watkins appear in records from other states. Someone cared enough to ask police to check on her that Friday morning, and the people closest to her surely remember who she was.
Her age and sex stand out. Most homicide victims in Chicago that year were young men killed by gunfire. A 60-year-old woman stabbed inside a home is a rarer case, and the attack was close and personal, which means her killer was inside or at the door of the house with her.
South Chicago, on the city's Southeast Side near the lake and the mouth of the Calumet River, grew up around steel mills that once employed thousands of people. Today the area around South Marquette Avenue is largely residential, with bungalows, two-flats and small apartment buildings. Neighbors may have noticed visitors, a car parked outside or unusual sounds in the hours before police arrived.
Chicago recorded about 580 homicides in 2018 and about 500 the following year. Most were shootings; deaths from stabbings, 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 Rene Watkins 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 saw Rene Watkins in the days before April 6, 2018, who visited the home on South Marquette Avenue, or who knows why someone grew worried enough to ask police to check on her, may be able to help. 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).
