Brenda Ramos, 29, was found beaten to death inside her basement apartment in the 2600 block of North Hampden Court in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Monday, January 1, 2018, New Year's Day. The Chicago Police Department investigated, with Area North detectives leading the homicide investigation. She was the first person listed in the Chicago Tribune's tracker of the city's 2018 homicide victims.
Police said they received a phone call from a relative of Ramos's estranged husband,
who said they had found her dead in the basement of the apartment. Officers found her at 11:22 a.m. CWB Chicago reported that she was in the basement unit at 2619 North Hampden Court. She had suffered blunt force trauma to the head. Police said the exact circumstances of her death were not immediately known, and it was not known how long she had been dead before her body was discovered. An autopsy the next day by the Cook County medical examiner's office found that she died of multiple injuries from an assault, and her death was ruled a homicide.
Police released few details after that. As of Wednesday, January 3, no arrests had been made, and police declined to say more while Area North detectives conducted their investigation. No suspect description, person of interest, motive or reward was made public in the coverage found for this account. A year later, a blog that tracks unresolved crimes, Suburbia Unresolved, listed her killing as unsolved, noting that no arrests had been made and no further details had been provided.
Brenda Ramos was born on August 31, 1988, according to a memorial page kept by Chicago Survivors, a group that supports families of homicide victims in the city. Univision Chicago described her as a young Latina mother and reported that people who knew her called her a kind person. Beyond that, little about her life has been published. Searches for her name are crowded with other women named Brenda Ramos in other states, whose stories have nothing to do with hers, which has buried what little trace exists of the Chicago woman.
The 2600 block of North Hampden Court sits in Lincoln Park, on the city's North Side, a busy and largely residential neighborhood of apartment buildings, two-flats and greystones near the lakefront and the park that gives the area its name. Neighbors, other residents of the building, or anyone who spent the holiday weekend nearby may have heard or seen something in the hours before she was found.
Chicago recorded about 580 homicides in 2018 and about 500 the following year. Most were shootings; deaths from beatings, like this one, made up a much smaller share. Chicago police later reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Brenda Ramos could be found in news archives or public records. More than 8 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who spoke with Brenda Ramos over the New Year's weekend, who knows who visited the Hampden Court apartment in those days, or who has heard talk since about what happened to her, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Chicago Police Department's anonymous tip line at (833) 408-0069 or submit a tip online at CPDTIP.com, or contact Cook County Crime Stoppers at (800) 535-STOP (7867).
