Roy Lipford had been looking forward to a visit with his brother Michael, a longtime West Sider, this spring.
The family needed some positivity, he said, after Roy’s daughter died unexpectedly in February. He’d retired that same month and had been excited to return to Chicago, where he’d lived as a young adult and where Michael had spent most of his life.
Instead, Roy Lipford found himself in town last week to identify Michael’s remains. Michael, 68, one of 11 siblings, was found dead in the basement of his partially burned North Lawndale home on March 7.
At first, all Roy Lipford, 78, knew was that his brother had been found dead. Then he spoke to investigators who shared some grisly details. He sat hunched on a relative’s sofa remembering the conversation and the barrage of phone calls from concerned friends that came next.
“They said his hands were cut off,” Roy said.
Michael Lipford’s body was found with both arms and one leg severed and showed apparent attempts at further dismemberment, according to police. Authorities also found a saw, heavy-duty trash bags, shrink wrap and a cellphone near the corpse, according to police.
Roy Lipford and his daughter, TJ Lipford, had already identified his brother’s body, only viewing his head and face. Although an autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner’s office determined that he died as a result of gunshot wounds, Michael’s niece said investigators told the family that whoever dismembered his corpse appeared to be doing so over a few days. Police have questioned a person who Lipford had known previously, sources said.
Roy and TJ said their faith has offered solace in a few brutal months for their family. “I know there is a God,” Lipford said. “I believe our days are already spoken even before we come out.”
But when he prays these days, Lipford said he has many questions for God. “I ask him why I’m going through this, what’s the reason for this,” he said.
Michael Lipford left no spouse or children behind but was close to his 10 siblings. He was soft-spoken, with a cat he called Grey and a fish tank offering him day-to-day company, his family said. In recent years, a hip replacement had limited his mobility, preventing him from making it to Tennessee for their mother’s funeral last year and his niece’s funeral last month.
Some relatives had worried about his health, but never thought someone would be violent toward him. They knew he kept money in the house — which had proved an issue years before during a raid on his apartment that later made Tribune headlines — and that worried them. But TJ Lipford said someone who wanted something from him could have just asked.
“You don’t have to take anything from anybody in this family,” she said. “Ask them, they’re going to give it to you. We don’t know what led to this.”
Lipford’s sister, Evelyn Moss, said he cooked well and put that to use when his family visited him.
“We’d get up in the morning and he’d say ‘OK, I know you can’t cook, so I’m going to make you breakfast,’” she said.
He took her around the city and his neighborhood during those visits. “He’d say, ‘You have to be careful,’” Moss said. “He was very protective of us.”
Roy Lipford said he’d sent their mother newspaper clippings about his 2015 lawsuit against the Cook County probation department and city police when the case appeared in the news nearly a decade ago. The suit alleged that authorities had conducted a warrantless search in his old West Side apartment in 2013.
Chicago man’s suit alleges officers illegally searched his home
Officers found several weapons and ammunition in his apartment and arrested Lipford because his firearm owner’s identification card had expired, the Tribune reported at the time. The lawsuit was settled in 2017 and Lipford received $30,000.
Moss said she last spoke to Lipford about the death of their niece and had promised to send him his birthday card a few months early. The card had a dog wearing sunglasses on the front and read, “You know you’re getting older.” The two had a tradition of celebrating their birthdays together, a few days apart in late June.
The card, Moss said, is still on her dresser.
As of Tuesday, police had no one in custody in connection with Lipford’s death and Harrison Area detectives were continuing their investigation.
