Arel Gomez, 41, was stabbed to death in a basement in the 4800 block of South Winchester Avenue in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, part of the New City community area on Chicago's South Side, on Friday, November 2, 2018. He lived on the same block. The Chicago Police Department investigated, and Area Central detectives were assigned to the case.
According to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office, officers responded about 1 p.m. to the basement and found Gomez with stab wounds to his head and neck. The Sun-Times report described the killing as happening Friday morning, so the attack may have taken place some time before officers arrived. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy the next day found that he died of multiple sharp force injuries and a blunt force injury to the head, meaning he was both stabbed and struck.
The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
Police did not release a description of anyone they wanted to question, a vehicle, a weapon or a possible motive. The public reports do not say whether anyone else was in the basement, who called police, whether there was a sign of forced entry or whether Gomez knew the person who attacked him. No arrest was announced, no reward tied to his case could be found, and no follow-up story about the investigation appears to have been published. The Chicago Sun-Times homicide tracker, which lists every homicide in the city, records his death as a stabbing.
Beyond his name, his age and the fact that he lived on the block where he died, almost nothing about Arel Gomez has entered the public record. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had relatives, friends, co-workers and neighbors who remember who he was and what his life was like in the fall of 2018.
Back of the Yards takes its name from the old Union Stock Yards just to the north, and for generations it has been a working-class neighborhood of frame cottages and two-flats, many of them with basement apartments. In recent decades it has been home to a large Mexican and Mexican American community. A killing in a basement on a residential block in the middle of a weekday is the kind of event that neighbors, landlords, other tenants or people passing on the sidewalk may have noticed, even if they did not realize at the time what they had seen or heard.
Chicago recorded about 580 homicides in 2018 and about 500 in 2019. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in 2019 and the years that followed, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Arel Gomez could be found in news archives or public records. More than 7 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived in or visited the building on South Winchester Avenue, who knew who was staying in that basement, or who saw someone coming or going from it that Friday 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).
