Two adult brothers told authorities their mother and sister could be buried in the backyard.
The investigation started after the water company alerted police that water hadn’t been used at the home in the 3900-block of Center Avenue. Gas and electric use had also been minimal.
Upon arriving they found a severe case of hoarding. The home contained jars filled with urine and piles of possessions throughout the two story home, as well as multiple cats and dogs running around the property.
“It was multiple liters of urine,” said Lyons Police Chief Thomas Herion. “There was no running toilets. Every room, the front door, the backdoor were completely barricaded with debris, boxes.”
Neighbors also mentioned they hadn’t seen one of the brothers who lives there in days.
“Sunday to today,” Herion said. “We know it’s a million degrees in there, so started getting concerned maybe they had passed.”
Police said they spoke to two men who lived there, brothers, who they said suffer from mental illness. They told police they used a side window in the home to come and go as the doors wouldn’t open.
“He said he had another brother upstairs who had some health issues,” said Herion.
The brothers told police their mom was pushed down the stairs by their sister in December 2015, and died sometime the following week from her head injury. Police said she was in her late 70s. The brothers then said their sisters got sick and died in 2019. Police said she was 42.
“Where are they? He indicated they were buried in the back yard, he said, ‘Oh they got sick, they died and we just buried them in the backyard,'” Herion said.
The state of Illinois has no record of their deaths. Police said all evidence points to the bodies being in the yard; they have no evidence their mother is in Connecticut, or that the sister is with other family.
The brothers said their father had died in 2012 and they had cremated him.
Friday, police are bringing in more help, including an archeologist, for the extremely tedious task of emptying the home and looking for any evidence of what happened inside and sifting dirt in the yard outside.
“We are going to have to have expert crews come in to empty this residence,” Chief Herion said. “We will have detectives outside as items are coming out of the house every piece of evidence is going to have to be evaluated read and determine whether it’s valuable or not valuable.”
Both brothers were taken for a physical and mental evaluation at a hospital, but have not been placed under arrest. But that could change if evidence of human remains are found Saturday, as the concealment of a death is a class 4 felony in Illinois.
“We don’t know whether we have bodies, whether we have good information, bad information, this is a preliminary investigation and it’s an ongoing investigation,” Herion said.
But the process of digging up bodies is complex, with many unknowns.
“They take skims of dirt, they put it in the sifters, they sift that dirt out to find any type of evidence, and they go through in very slow, methodical steps by hand,” he said.
The chief said the brothers were released within about two hours after they were taken in for their mental check, which was a surprise. The city is now paying for them to stay in a hotel as the investigation continues.
The Lyons Police Department is working with the Cook County State’s Attorney to begin an investigation.
Police said they are currently treating this as a homicide investigation, but cautioned the brothers could be telling the truth.
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