Nicole L. Kinsley, 37, was found fatally stabbed on the morning of Friday, October 5, 2018, at 4149 W. Cermak Road, in North Lawndale on Chicago's West Side. The Chicago Sun-Times homicide tracker, which lists every homicide in the city, records the location as the 4100 block of West Cermak Road. The Chicago Police Department investigated.
According to Chicago police and the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, Kinsley was found at 7:14 a.m. with her throat slashed.
She was pronounced dead at 7:27 a.m. An autopsy the next day found she died of multiple stab and incise wounds, and her death was ruled a homicide. Her obituary says she died at her home. Public accounts do not say who found her, when she was last seen alive or whether a weapon was recovered.
Police took a man into custody that Friday, and the Chicago Tribune reported that charges were pending. On Saturday, however, he was released without being charged, police said. Police did not name him and declined to release further details about the case. The Sun-Times tracker lists no suspect, and no follow-up report, description of a suspect or reward announcement could be found.
Kinsley was born December 4, 1980, in Spring Valley, Illinois, and had lived in Princeton, Illinois, before moving to Chicago, according to her obituary. She was the daughter of Donald Kinsley and Connie Warren Hoffman. She left behind a daughter, Samarrah; her mother; a brother, Brandon; a sister, Shannon; and several stepbrothers and stepsisters. Her obituary says she enjoyed writing poetry and drawing. Her family arranged cremation and planned a celebration of life, and asked that memorials be sent to her mother. Her father and her stepfather had died before her.
The 4100 block of West Cermak Road runs through North Lawndale, a West Side community where Cermak Road is a wide commercial and industrial street lined with businesses, homes and apartment buildings. A death discovered there at 7 a.m. on a weekday means that people heading to work, school or the bus may have noticed activity during the night or early morning.
Chicago recorded about 580 homicides in 2018 and about 500 in 2019. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of homicides in the years that followed, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
The fact that a man was held and then released without charges suggests investigators had someone in view early on. Whether the case later moved forward has never been made public.
No arrest leading to a criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Nicole Kinsley 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 saw Nicole Kinsley on the night of October 4, 2018, or who knows who was with her at her home on Cermak Road, 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).
