UP TOWN DEATH MYSTERY
Cause of death ‘ undetermined’ for woman found decomposed in apartment
Cook County medical examiners have not been able to determine what caused the death of a 58- year- old woman whose badly decomposed body was discovered in the bedroom of an Uptown apartment she shared with her husband.
Steven Seiler has been jailed since December on charges of concealing a death and moving a body following his arrest at the apartment in the 4400 block of North Clifton.
Seiler was taken into custody as he returned to the apartment after police forced their way into the locked bedroom and discovered the body of Tamara Walsh, wrapped in a pair of comforters and a tarp, according to a report from the Cook County medical examiner’s office released last week.
The report listed the cause of death as “undetermined” and does not offer an estimate of when Walsh died but noted mold had begun to spread on her neck and the presence of “insect activity” on her chest.
Walsh, who had been in a wheelchair following hip surgery a month before her bodywas found, had opioid painkillers in her system and had some signs of heart disease, the report states. The body showed no signs of internal or external injuries.
A friend who asked police to check on Walsh said he had not seen her in a month, according to the report.
Seiler, who was found carrying his wife’s state ID, Social Security card, debit card, birth certificate and wedding ring, according to prosecutors, told police he had noticed a smell in the apartment for “about a month” but had not entered the locked bedroom where police discoveredWalsh’s body.
Seiler said he didn’t learn his wife had died until he got a call from his daughter. Surveillance camera footage from the building showed Seiler coming and going from the apartment and checking the mailbox each day in the week Walsh’s body was found.
Police who entered the apartment Dec. 10 immediately noticed something was amiss: “bodily fluids” were smeared “all over” the apartment and a “rotting smell” hung in the air, Assistant State’s Attorney Julia Ramirez said at Seiler’s bond hearing. Three weeks earlier, Ramirez said, Seiler had used Walsh’s debit card to buy a gold coin, which he subsequently sold.
Three months before Walsh’s body was found, Seiler was charged with domestic battery, having knocked Walsh into a table as he pushed open the door to the apartment, shouting “Open the door stupid b—- or I’ll kick the son of a b—- in.”
A judge granted Walsh a protective order that barred Seiler from going to the house while intoxicated, but court records show he violated that order by showing up at the house drunk just two weeks later. The protective order was issued just days after Walsh had scooped an inheritance check made out to Seiler from the mail and turned it over to her attorney.
In a 2009 civil lawsuit Walsh filed against Seiler stemming from a domestic violence case in Will County, Walsh had been awarded a $ 120,000 judgment against her husband. A hearing in that case had been set for Nov. 28, little over a week beforeWalsh’s body was found.
Seiler had been granted bond and was to be allowed to go free on electronic monitoring, but Cook County sheriff’s officials said Seiler remains at the jail because he does not have a permanent residence.
Walsh’s attorney in the civil matter, John Schrock, declined comment.
The couple had married in 2014; their daughter is 22, Ramirez said.