James Ostrowski, 58, was found stabbed to death inside a home in the 800 block of West Agatite Avenue in the Uptown neighborhood on Chicago's North Side on the evening of Wednesday, December 5, 2018. He lived on the same block. The Chicago Police Department investigated, and Area North detectives were assigned to the case.
Ostrowski was found unresponsive about 7:30 p.m. with multiple stab wounds to his neck and abdomen, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy the next day found he died of multiple sharp force injuries, and his death was ruled a homicide. He was not publicly identified until a week later, when the Sun-Times reported his name on December 12.
Police did not say who found him, how long he had been dead, whether anything was taken, whether there were signs of forced entry or whether he knew the person who killed him.
No description of a suspect, vehicle or motive was released, no arrest was announced, and no reward tied to his case could be found. No follow-up story about the investigation appears to have been published.
An online art wiki entry describes a James Ostrowski who was born May 8, 1960, and died December 5, 2018, which matches his age and the date of his death. It says he was a native of Ottawa, Illinois, and was better known by the pseudonym Duffen Cory. A Chicago television journalist who shared the Sun-Times story on social media remembered a Jim Ostrowski as "a kid that lived around the corner from me growing up." Those glimpses suggest a man with a creative life and old friends who noticed when he was gone. No obituary or family fundraiser could be found.
Agatite Avenue is a residential side street in Uptown, a dense and diverse lakefront community known for its historic entertainment district around Lawrence Avenue and Broadway and for its mix of large apartment buildings, courtyard buildings and older homes. On a December evening, neighbors coming home from work, other residents of his building or someone who visited him that day may have seen or heard something without realizing its importance.
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. Stabbings and beatings drew far less attention than the shootings that dominated the city's headlines, and many of them were reported in a few lines and never mentioned again.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of James Ostrowski 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 knew James Ostrowski or Duffen Cory, who lived in or visited his building on West Agatite Avenue, or who spoke with him in the days before December 5, 2018, 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).
