Markita Rogers, 25, was found stabbed to death in a back bedroom of a home in the 4900 block of West Potomac Avenue in Austin, on Chicago's West Side, on the afternoon of Monday, October 5, 2020. The Chicago Police Department investigated, and Area Five detectives were assigned to the case.
According to police, officers went to the home about 1:40 p.m. after someone reported a smell coming from a back bedroom. Inside, they found Rogers and a 47-year-old man, both unresponsive and face down on the floor. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Autopsy results released the next day by the Cook County medical examiner's office found that Rogers died of a stab wound to the neck and ruled her death a homicide. A ruling on the man's cause and manner of death was pending, and his identity was not released.
Police did not release a suspect description, a motive or any explanation of how the two deaths were connected.
No later report on the man's death, no arrest and no charge in Rogers' death could be found. No reward tied to her case was found.
Very little about Rogers' life has been made public. No obituary, funeral notice or family fundraiser could be found for her. A social media post by a Chicago law firm that publishes homicide notices listed her as a 25-year-old woman stabbed to death on the block. The Sun-Times homicide tracker lists her as male, but police and the medical examiner's office identified her as a woman.
The unanswered questions are central to her case. It is not known who the man found beside her was, whether he caused her death, whether someone else killed them both, or when exactly she died. Without a public ruling on his death, it cannot be said whether her killing should be considered closed.
The 4900 block of West Potomac Avenue lies in Austin, one of Chicago's largest community areas, on the West Side along the border with suburban Oak Park. It is a residential block of homes and small apartment buildings. Neighbors who heard anything from the house before October 5 may hold important information.
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 Markita Rogers 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 knew Markita and saw her in the days before October 5, 2020, or who knows who the man in the house was, 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).
