Man with gunshot wound found dead inside burning East Hyde Park home, Chicago police say
Victim identified by family as 47-year-old Boyd Jarrell
CHICAGO (WLS) -- A man with a gunshot wound was found dead inside a burning home Saturday morning on the city's South Side, Chicago police said.
Officers responded to a call about a fire the East Hyde Park neighborhood's 4900-block of South Cornell Avenue just before 6:30 a.m.
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Police found an unresponsive 47-year-old man at the home who had been shot in the head. He was pronounced dead.
The fire has since been extinguished. How the fire started and who fired the shots was not immediately clear.
Friends and family identified the victim to ABC7 as 47-year-old Boyd Jarrell.
His distraught relatives gathered outside the retired businessman's home just hours after the horrific crime was discovered. They said Jarrell, who has a daughter, moved to the area after divorcing in the last few years.
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Some residents in the Hyde Park community were one edge after the incident.
"The fire was shocking enough," the victim's neighbor Christopher Hague said. "To find out there was a gun involved, and then this is a quiet area."
Hague said he was awakened after hearing what sounded like an object hitting a wall before smelling smoke.
"I still wasn't sure, but was nervous and ran out of the house, and that's when I saw billowing smoke out coming out of what I think to be my neighbor's bedroom and called 911," Hague said.
Both neighbors and Jarrell's family said one of his two cars, an orange Lamborghini, was missing from his garage.
So far, officials have had little to say about what sparked the fire or what led up to the shooting.
That is little comfort to a family, neighborhood residents, and a community looking for answers.
"It's scary," Hague said. "This is an unfolding situation, and I'm trying to figure out what the wider situation is."
Area One detectives are investigating.
Police did not immediately provide further information.
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