Cortez Desmond Mosley, 29, was fatally stabbed in the 6700 block of South Ada Street in Englewood, on Chicago's South Side, on the night of Monday, September 27, 2021. The Chicago Police Department investigated his death.
According to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office, Mosley was found with stab wounds about 9:05 p.m. on the block. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy released two days later ruled his death a homicide. The brief reports did not say whether he was found indoors or on the street, how many times he was stabbed, or whether anyone else was hurt.
No one was in custody, police said. No description of a suspect, no vehicle and no motive were released, and no reward tied to his case could be found.
The Chicago Sun-Times covered his death in a short report, and no follow-up story about an arrest or a charge appeared in the material reviewed for this account.
Little about his life has been made public. Leak and Sons, a South Side funeral home, posted an obituary page for a Cortez Mosley with a wake and funeral on November 5, 2021, more than five weeks after his death, which appears to be his. Other people named Cortez Mosley, including a college basketball player from Peoria, appear in search results, and none of those stories are about him.
Because so little was released, the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he knew his attacker, whether there was an argument first, or where he lived. At 29, he was close in age to many of the city's homicide victims, but stabbings make up a small share of Chicago killings, most of which are shootings.
The 6700 block of South Ada Street is in Englewood, a largely Black community on the South Side that has seen decades of disinvestment and population loss. Ada Street is a residential block of houses and two flats with some vacant lots, a short walk from the commercial corridor on 69th Street and Ashland Avenue. At 9 p.m. on a Monday in late September, neighbors on porches or passing on foot may have seen him with someone before he was found.
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 Cortez Desmond Mosley 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 on South Ada Street on the evening of September 27, 2021, or who knew Cortez Mosley and heard talk afterward of what happened, 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).
