Chicago stabbing: Man charged with stabbing HVAC contractor Rasim Katanic to death on North Side
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chicago police said a 33-year-old man is charged with the stabbing death of an HVAC contractor in broad daylight while he was working.
"That's not how I ever envision my dad to die, was for him to bleed out on top of a roof," said Aida Sutardjo, daughter. "My dad was slaughtered."
Rasim Katanic's family said he found his passion as an HVAC contractor while he was on the job. Chicago police said the 69-year-old was stabbed to death by Brandon Sanders, and his family said the suspect used Katanic's own screwdriver in the attack.
"My dad was at the right place, right time, but then somebody got access to him that shouldn't have," Sutardjo said.
Katanic was killed on May 12, in broad daylight while working on the rooftop of Tahoora Sweets & Bakery on Devon Avenue in West Ridge. Sutardjo said somehow Sanders got to the roof where her father was working.
"This is not was not the first time my dad was on that roof. This has been my dad's long-term client for 10-plus years," she said. "He probably didn't think my dad was working. He probably did not see or assume anybody was working on that roof, encountered my dad, and then, I think, we know what happened."
Before his murder, Katanic's family said his life was paved with tragedy back in their native country of Bosnia, during the Bosnian War in the 1990s.
"My uncle went missing, who was my dad's best friend," his daughter said. "We never found my uncle to this day. We have no idea what happened to him. But, it broke him."
Now she's left with the same shattered heartache her father once help. She can only hope that in Katanic's case justice will be served.
"Who does he think he is? Does he know he didn't just take one life away? He's impacted so many people from that one life," said Sutardjo.
Sanders is due back in court Tuesday morning. Police sources tell ABC7 Eyewitness News that during the investigation into the stabbing, they found a teenager's body in the freezer in the suspect's home. The investigation into that body is ongoing.
