Vincente Antunez, 67, was found beaten to death on the morning of Tuesday, August 9, 2022, behind the field house at Pottawattomie Park, 7340 N. Rogers Ave., in the 7300 block of North Rogers Avenue in Rogers Park, on Chicago's Far North Side. The Chicago Police Department investigated, and the Chicago Sun-Times homicide tracker, which lists every homicide in the city, records his death as an assault.
Someone found his body at about 8:30 a.m., and police responded to the park around 8:40 a.m., according to CWB Chicago, which reported that the body was said to be covered in blood. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The next day the Cook County medical examiner's office released autopsy findings: Antunez died of multiple injuries from an assault, and his death was ruled a homicide.
Police said only that they were conducting an investigation. "Additional information has not been released," the Sun-Times reported.
No description of an attacker, no time of the attack, no motive and no person of interest was ever made public, and no reward tied to his death could be found. It is not known whether he was attacked in the park or brought there, or whether he knew the person who hurt him.
Almost nothing about Vincente Antunez's life has entered the public record. Univision Chicago reported his death in Spanish, describing him as a Hispanic man of 67. No obituary, family statement, memorial or fundraiser could be found. A man of his age would likely have had relatives, friends or neighbors who knew his routine and may have noticed when he did not come home.
Pottawattomie Park is a neighborhood park with a field house on North Rogers Avenue in Rogers Park, a dense lakefront community near the city's northern border with Evanston. The park is used by families, sports leagues and dog walkers, and people who pass through it late at night or early in the morning may have seen him, or someone else, there in the hours before he was found. At the time, CWB Chicago noted that his was only the third murder in Rogers Park that year; city records showed two murder cases in the neighborhood in all of 2021.
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. When no witness comes forward and little is released, cases like this one can stall for years.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Vincente Antunez 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. Anyone who saw him in Pottawattomie Park or along Rogers Avenue on the night of August 8 or early on August 9, 2022, or who knew him and his routine, 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).
