Nireu Crosby, 24, was found strangled inside an abandoned building in the 2400 block of West 63rd Street in Chicago Lawn, on the city's Southwest Side, on the afternoon of Thursday, July 16, 2020. The Chicago Police Department investigated, and Area One detectives were assigned to the case.
According to police, a 20-year-old woman told officers about 2 p.m. that a man was unresponsive on the floor of a building on the block. Officers found the 24-year-old with a cord wrapped around his neck, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The Cook County medical examiner's office identified him as Nireu Crosby, who lived in Burnside on the Far South Side. An autopsy found that he died of strangulation and ruled his death a homicide.
In the first reports, police said Area One detectives were questioning a person of interest. That person was not named, and no charge followed that was ever made public.
No suspect description, motive or reward was made public.
Crosby's family held a visitation for him on July 26, 2020, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Leak and Sons Funeral Home at 7838 S. Cottage Grove Ave., followed by a funeral service. A social media profile under his name says he lived in Chicago and attended Corliss High School on the Far South Side.
Several things about his death stand out. He was a young man killed by strangulation, an unusual cause of death in Chicago, where most homicide victims in 2020 were shot. He was found far from his home in Burnside, inside a vacant building, and the person who alerted police was a young woman who apparently knew he was there.
The 2400 block of West 63rd Street runs through Chicago Lawn, a Southwest Side community area near Marquette Park. Sixty-Third Street is a commercial corridor lined with storefronts, and some buildings along it have stood empty for years. People who live or work along the block, or who knew who went in and out of the abandoned building, may have seen something in the hours before he was found.
Chicago recorded about 780 homicides in 2020, up from about 500 the year before. Police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in those years, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
Old Chicago cases can still move. Rasheedah Beyah, 42, died in August 2020 of injuries from a 2019 beating in Park Manor; in March 2022, prosecutors charged a man with first-degree murder in her death.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Nireu Crosby could be found in news archives or public records. More than 6 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who saw him on 63rd Street in mid-July 2020, who knows who was with him in the days before he died, or who knows what became of the person of interest, 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).
