Eugene E. Johnson, 27, was fatally stabbed in the neck inside a residential building in the 3500 block of West Fifth Avenue on Chicago's West Side early on Thursday, February 14, 2019, Valentine's Day. The area is known as Fifth City and lies in the East Garfield Park community area. He lived in the nearby Homan Square neighborhood. The Chicago Police Department investigated.
According to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office, Johnson was in a "domestic-related" fight with a 41-year-old man inside the building at 12:55 a.m. He was stabbed in the neck and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died at 1:39 a.m. His death was ruled a homicide.
Police said a person of interest was released from custody without being charged, and the Sun-Times homicide tracker records the suspect field for his case as "Released without charges." Police did not explain publicly why no charge was filed, and no ruling that the stabbing was self-defense has been reported.
In police usage, "domestic-related" can describe a fight between relatives, partners or people who live together, and the reports do not say how the two men knew each other. No reward tied to his case could be found, and no follow-up story appears to have been published.
Almost nothing about Eugene Johnson's life has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. Eugene Johnson is a very common name, and searches are dominated by obituaries and court cases involving other men who shared it, which has buried any trace of the 27-year-old from Homan Square. He died in the first hour of Valentine's Day, and the people who loved him have marked that date ever since.
Fifth Avenue is one of the West Side's diagonal streets, cutting through blocks of two-flats, apartment buildings and vacant lots between Homan Square and Garfield Park. Fifth City takes its name from a community development effort begun there in the 1960s. Other residents of the building, or neighbors who heard the fight shortly before 1 a.m., may know more about what happened than has ever been made public.
Chicago recorded about 500 homicides in 2019, down from about 580 the year before. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides that year, though that figure counts 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 criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Eugene Johnson could be found in news archives or public records, and the man police questioned was released. More than 7 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was in or near the building on West Fifth Avenue that night, who heard the argument, or who knows what led to the fight 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).
