One of 2 deaths in Oak Lawn mobile home park fire ruled homicide

OAK LAWN, Ill. (WLS) -- The death of a man, who was one of two men killed in a fire that spread to two mobile homes in southwest suburban Oak Lawn on Thursday, has been ruled a homicide according to police. This was the second deadly fire at the same mobile home park in nearly a month.

Firefighters responded around 1:45 a.m. to a report of a fire in the 9000-block of South Cicero Avenue. They found two trailers engulfed by flames - the fire had spread from one mobile home to another.

"I couldn't do anything, I tried to put a jacket over my head, but it was too hot. I ran around back. Police officers told me to back off," said Tryston Radtke, a neighbor.

Crews found one man outside one of the burning trailers and another man inside the other trailer. Both men were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where one of the men died. His identity has not yet been released.

The second man succumbed to his injuries and died Thursday afternoon, according to police.

One woman said one of the victims was celebrating his birthday Wednesday night. She described the victim as a wonderful neighbor.

"He's been a neighbor to me for many years, he cuts my lawn," said Mary Grochola, a neighbor. "He does a lot of things for us he's an all-around ok guy."

Firefighters extinguished the blaze within 20 minutes. Investigators are looking into how the fire started.

On May 9, a 64-year-old woman was killed in a fire at the same trailer park.

Diana Lynch had fallen asleep while smoking a cigarette inside her mobile home, investigators said. She was taken to Christ, where she died.

An autopsy found she died of carbon monoxide toxicity and thermal injuries from the fire.

The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.