Danielle Kizaire, 70, who was also known as Danielle Kizaire-Sutton, was found stabbed to death inside an apartment building in the 300 block of East 53rd Street in Washington Park, on Chicago's South Side, on the morning of Thursday, August 29, 2019. The Chicago Sun-Times homicide tracker, which lists every homicide in the city, records the date of her death as August 28.
The Chicago Police Department investigated.
According to Chicago police, someone called 911 asking for help shortly before 8 a.m. Responding officers found Kizaire dead with stab wounds inside the building, police and the Cook County medical examiner's office said. An autopsy the next day found that she died of multiple blunt and sharp force injuries, meaning she had been beaten as well as stabbed, and her death was ruled a homicide.
Police said the stabbing appeared to be domestic in nature. A man was taken into custody, but he had been released without charges as of Friday afternoon, according to the Sun-Times. Police never publicly named him or explained his connection to her, and no later arrest, charge, suspect description or reward offer tied to her death could be found.
Kizaire-Sutton was a Bronzeville community builder. She co-founded a nonprofit called Bronzeville Urban Development, and around 2005 she and fellow Bronzeville resident Patricia Abrams approached the city about cleaning up the abandoned Kenwood branch rail embankment. "The city told them it was too risky," a trail advocate named Adams later told the Hyde Park Herald. Her nonprofit eventually bought a section of the embankment near 40th Street and Langley Avenue and won an Environmental Protection Agency grant to turn it into a solar-powered community farm, though that project stalled. The idea lived on: the Bronzeville Trail Task Force took it up in 2020, and in October 2026 the Herald reported the trail could be completed by 2034. A 2014 South Side Weekly profile followed her down Oakwood Boulevard, where she seemed to know every house. One online tribute after her death called her "a beautiful warrior Goddess" who "taught people, fought for our rights and built a legacy of love."
The 300 block of East 53rd Street lies a short distance from the park that gives Washington Park its name, on a busy east-west street with apartment buildings and storefronts. A call for help shortly before 8 a.m. on a weekday means that neighbors, building residents and people heading to work may have heard something or seen someone leave the building.
Chicago recorded about 500 homicides in 2019, down from about 580 the year before. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in the years from 2019 through 2023, though those figures count cases closed without charges. Domestic killings in which a person is questioned and released can remain open for years unless new evidence or a witness comes forward.
No criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Danielle Kizaire could be found in news archives or public records; the man taken into custody that day was released without charges, and no later arrest has been reported. More than 7 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Neighbors in the building on East 53rd Street, and anyone who knew who was in her life in the summer of 2019, 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).
