Search for bodies in Lyons as brothers taken into custody
The two brothers who allegedly told police they buried their mother and sister in their Lyons backyard were handcuffed and taken into custody Saturday afternoon as they sat watching authorities dig for the bodies.
After a day of investigators carrying out the excavation in the heat, Lyons police Chief Thomas Herion announced to a group of reporters: “I just want to let you know we are taking two subjects into custody right now as we speak.”
Dozens of feet away, two men, who earlier identified themselves to a Tribune reporter as the brothers who lived in the house in the 3900 block of South Center Avenue, put their arms behind their back so officers could handcuff them. They had been sitting on a plot of grass Saturday to observe the excavation after police said one of them pointed out locations where they buried their mother and sister.
The Tribune is not naming the brothers because formal charges had not been filed as of late Saturday.
An hour before the arrests, investigators said they had uncovered two containers they suspected contained human remains, and further inspection found two bodies that match the timeline of when the brothers said their mother, Jean Lelko, and their sister, Jennifer Lelko, died — 2015 and 2019, respectively.
In announcing the arrests taking place in front of him, Herion sought to downplay concern over police waiting more than two days to take the suspects into custody.
He said given that authorities have 48 hours to charge someone upon detaining them, the time-consuming excavation would have concluded too late.
“There’s an old saying: No body, no crime, right?” Herion said. “People do lie and people do make up stories.”
Herion did not elaborate on the scope of the charges the brothers face but said the possibilities span from homicide to concealment of a death, which is a felony.
In his remarks, Herion noted the case was “far from over” and further digging, execution of search warrants and DNA testing were necessary. The Cook County medical examiner’s office will start an autopsy Sunday and has up to 90 days to rule on cause of death.
The saga began when police did a well-being check Thursday at the home after village workers noticed no water had been used there for a year, Herion said. He encountered an “uninhabitable” residence with feces and bottled urine, along with no gas meter. Heaps of trash and boxes could be seen through the windows.
“I’d never saw more deplorable living conditions in my life,” Herion said Saturday. “It was absolutely chaotic in there.”
During interviews with police, the brothers — one in his 40s and the other in his 50s — indicated their mother died in 2015 after being pushed down the stairs by their sister, Herion said. The sister, according to what police said the brothers told them, died in 2019 due to the coronavirus, though no coronavirus deaths were reported in the U.S. until 2020.
The brothers told police they buried both relatives in their backyard, Herion said. There are no logs of their deaths in the city’s records.