Harold Owens, 36, died early on Monday, December 10, 2018, after he was stabbed in the chest and made his way back to his home in the 300 block of East 56th Street in the Washington Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. 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, Owens stumbled to his home about 12:50 a.m. with the wound to his chest. He told officers he had come back there after being stabbed, and then he collapsed. Police said it was unknown where the attack had taken place. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:12 a.m.
No one was in custody, and police did not release a description of the person who stabbed him, a location for the attack, a weapon or a motive. It is not known whether Owens was able to tell officers anything more about who hurt 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. A Chicago Tribune list of 2018 homicide victims appears to record a "Harold Dowens, 38" on the same date, a sign that his name and age were not always reported the same way.
His family's grief is plain in the few words they posted. A GoFundMe fundraiser titled "Helping Harold Owens" was created two days after his death, organized by Linda Williams for Ellis Williams. "My son Harold Owens was killed on Monday, December 10, 2018," it reads. "Stabbed in the chest, air filled his lungs, his heart shifted he died." No obituary could be found for this account.
East 56th Street runs through Washington Park, a South Side community area just west of the large park of the same name and a short distance from the University of Chicago. Because Owens walked home after he was stabbed, someone along his route that night, on a sidewalk, at a bus stop or in a nearby building, may have seen a wounded man walking toward 56th Street, or seen where he had been in the minutes before.
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 Harold Owens 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 was with Harold Owens on the night of Sunday, December 9, 2018, who knows where he went that evening, or who saw an injured man walking toward East 56th Street shortly before 1 a.m. 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).
