Juan Antonio Garcia Rios, 67, was beaten to death in the 1900 block of South Ashland Avenue in Pilsen, on Chicago's Lower West Side, on the afternoon of Friday, September 10, 2021. The Chicago Police Department investigated his death. His name is recorded in the Sun-Times homicide tracker as Juan Garcia Rios.
Garcia Rios had just eaten a meal at a church soup kitchen and was talking on the phone with his sister when she heard the voice of another man approaching and speaking to her brother, his niece, Sara Garcia, told the Sun-Times. He told his sister he would call her back. "She never heard from him," Garcia said. "He was disabled. He couldn't even really walk, much less run. He was in a church and he had just finished eating." Police said he was attacked, possibly after an argument, around 2:45 p.m. He was found unresponsive on the ground with a head injury and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital.
The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide by assault.
Four days later, a police spokesperson said no one had been arrested, and the motive was unclear. Police did not release a description of the man who approached him. His family made a public appeal for help. "He was killed. He was my uncle. We want justice. We want to see if people know more information, if they can tell the cops," Garcia said. "We just want justice because we're so far away."
Garcia Rios had moved from Houston to Chicago about five months earlier to look for work and to preach the Bible, his niece said. "He was a Christian man," she said. "His life mattered and he was loved." The name Juan Garcia Rios is shared by several other people, including men in unrelated criminal cases elsewhere, and none of those stories are about him.
The 1900 block of South Ashland Avenue is a busy commercial stretch in Pilsen, a historically Mexican American neighborhood known for its murals and small businesses. Ashland carries heavy bus and car traffic, and in the middle of a Friday afternoon the sidewalks near the church and its soup kitchen would have had pedestrians, diners and shopkeepers who may have seen the man who approached him.
Violence was rising in the area at the time. The Sun-Times reported that murders in the police district covering Pilsen and much of the Near West Side had risen 65 percent over the previous year, from 17 to 28. Chicago recorded about 800 homicides in 2021, the deadliest year in the city in a quarter century, after about 780 in 2020. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in the years from 2019 through 2023, though those figures count cases closed without charges, so the share of killings that led to a criminal case was lower.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Juan Antonio Garcia Rios could be found in news archives or public records. More than 5 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was at the church meal or on South Ashland Avenue around 2:45 p.m. on September 10, 2021, or who saw a man speaking with him, 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).
