Margo Flowers, 65, was found strangled in her home in the 1500 block of West Garfield Boulevard in Back of the Yards, part of the New City community area on Chicago's South Side, on the morning of Wednesday, September 11, 2019. Area Central detectives of the Chicago Police Department investigated.
According to Chicago police, a property manager called 911 and said she had not seen her 65-year-old tenant in several days.
Chicago Fire Department crews forced their way into the home, near Garfield Boulevard and Laflin Street, about 9:30 a.m. and found Flowers unresponsive next to a bed. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police and the Cook County medical examiner's office said. An autopsy released the next day found that she died of ligature strangulation, meaning a cord or similar object had been used, and her death was ruled a homicide.
Police did not release any suspect description, vehicle, motive or person of interest, and no later appeal for information or reward offer tied to her death could be found. Because she had not been seen for several days, it is not publicly known exactly when she was killed, who last saw her alive, whether there was any sign of a break-in, or whether anything was taken from her home.
Very little about Margo Flowers's life has been made public. No obituary, funeral notice, memorial fundraiser or family statement for the woman found on Garfield Boulevard could be located; another woman named Margo Flowers who died in 2018 appears in obituary searches but is a different person. That she lived alone, and that it was her property manager rather than a relative who first raised the alarm, suggests a quiet life, but even that is not certain. She surely had people who knew her, and who noticed when she stopped answering.
Garfield Boulevard is part of Chicago's historic boulevard system, a wide, tree-lined route that crosses the South Side. Back of the Yards takes its name from the Union Stock Yards that once stood just to the north, and today it is a working-class neighborhood of homes, small apartment buildings and corner stores. Other tenants in the building, neighbors on the block and people who passed her door in the days before September 11 may remember a visitor, a noise or a change in her routine.
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. Cases in which a victim is found days after death, with no witness and no immediate suspect, are among the hardest for detectives to solve.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Margo Flowers could be found in news archives or public records. More than 7 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who saw or spoke with Margo Flowers in early September 2019, or who saw someone come or go from her home on West Garfield Boulevard in those days, 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).
