Amy Brown, 22, was stabbed to death outside the home where she lived in the 5200 block of South Carpenter Street on Chicago's South Side on the night of Sunday, June 26, 2022. News reports placed the home in Back of the Yards; the Chicago Sun-Times homicide tracker, which lists every homicide in the city, records the community area as Bridgeport. The Chicago Police Department investigated.
Officers responded to a report of a person stabbed at about 10:25 p.m., according to a police report later described by the Chicago Tribune. They found Brown unresponsive on the grass outside with multiple stab wounds, and two knives near her body. Police said she had been stabbed in the chest and arms during a fight. She was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Police described the killing as domestic-related.
A man at the scene, whose hands and arm were covered in what officers believed to be blood, was placed in custody, and a knife was recovered. According to the police report, he told officers that Brown had come home screaming and attacked him with knives, and that he took the knives from her and stabbed her in self-defense. Police said days later that the person had been released without charges. No reward tied to the case could be found.
Her sisters, Melony and Sarah Bustamante, remember her as an artist. "Amy loved to draw and paint so much, she would do it everywhere," Sarah told the Tribune in 2024. "As long as she had the image in her head she was going to put it down. It was very therapeutic for her." Friends and family knew her by her familiar red hat. Her obituary called her "a strong free spirit who knew who she was at a young age" who loved to draw, cook, dance and make others laugh. She is buried at St. Mary Catholic Cemetery in Evergreen Park, where her family decorates her grave with pink flamingos, rainbow flowers and a butterfly statue painted by her niece. Two years after her death, the Tribune reported, the family was still calling for a renewed investigation.
The 5200 block of South Carpenter Street is a residential stretch of houses and two-flats on the South Side, near the old stockyards district that gave Back of the Yards its name. A fight outside a home on a summer Sunday night is something neighbors on the block may have heard or watched from their porches.
Chicago recorded about 720 homicides in 2022, down from about 800 in 2021, which had been the deadliest year in a quarter century. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in those years, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
Although a man was taken into custody that night, no criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Amy Brown could be found in news archives or public records. More than 4 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible, and her family has said publicly that they want the case looked at again. Neighbors who heard the fight, or anyone who knows what happened inside the home before she was stabbed, 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).
