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$16M awarded to families of three elderly women found dead in sweltering Rogers Park apartment complex
The families of three senior women who died from heat exposure inside a Rogers Park apartment complex were awarded $16 million in a settlement with the building owners.
CHICAGO - The families of three senior women who died from heat exposure inside a Rogers Park apartment complex were awarded $16 million in a settlement with the building owners.
Delores McNeely, 76, Gwendolyn Osborne, 72, and Janice Reed, 68, were found dead in their rooms on May 14 at the James Sneider Apartments, 7450 N. Rogers Ave., as temperatures inside the building rose into the low 90s.
On Aug. 11, the Cook County medical examiner’s office determined the primary cause of death for all three women was "environmental heat exposure due to hot residential building during heat-related weather event," according to spokeswoman Brittany Hill.
Gateway Apartments Ltd and Hispanic Housing and Development Corporation, the companies that own and manage the buildings, agreed to the $16 million total payout which will be divided equally between the families.
"Delores’s apartment unit had reached temperatures of at least 103 degrees when she was found. There is no excuse for apartment owners or managers to ignore cries for help from their tenants, especially when their main clientele is the elderly," The McNeely family’s attorney Brian L. Salvi, of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C., said.
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Veldarin Jackson Sr., showed up at the building after the body of his mother, Janice Reed, was discovered during a well-being check that morning, he said the thermostat in her room showed it was 102 degrees.
"When we walked in there," Jackson said, "it was like an oven."
While fans and portable air conditioners had been handed out and a "cooling center" set up, it was only after the deaths that the building’s heating system was switched over to cool the complex at 7450 N. Rogers Ave.
"They knew that people were burning up and they made them endure it for an additional two days afterward with no relief," said Osborne’s son, Kenneth Rye.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.