Body Found by Missing Chicago Woman’s Vehicle

TRAGIC!!! TRAGIC!!! I'm speechless. Just tragic.

The badly decomposed body of a woman was found early this morning in an area of Calumet City where police have been searching for Nailah Franklin, a Chicago woman missing for about a week.Patrol officers found an unclothed body behind several vacant businesses at River Oaks Drive and Gold Coast Lane, near the Wentworth Woods Forest Preserve. Dozens of investigators with Calumet City police, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office were on the scene this afternoon.Franklin's sisters said the body has not been confirmed to be that of the missing woman, according to a family friend. The family, including Franklin's five sisters and a brother, have been working directly with detectives, the friend said.

A relative who has told some media outlets that the body is hers does not speak for the family, the friend said.Calumet City Police Chief Russell Larson said at the scene that the condition of the body has prevented police from making a positive identification. He said that they had determined the victim is a woman, but that the body is decomposed to the point that it's impossible to determine race or any other factors."At no time has anyone identified this body," Larson said. "No one has an idea who it might be."The Cook County medical examiner's office said they will perform an autopsy on the body tomorrow, and Chicago police have said dental records will needed to make a positive identification.Larson said two officers were on patrol around 5 a.m. when they noticed something unusual in the parking lot.

They decided to check out the area and discovered the body in a densely wooded area behind a shuttered business.He would not say what it was that piqued the officers' interest but said, "They paid attention to a very minute detail that most people would have walked past."Rocco Santana, a salesman at the River Oaks Ford dealership across the street from the scene, said he saw a black car parked in the parking lot on Friday night. The vehicle was there for about 20 minutes then left eastbound on 159th Street, he said."It came in quick and left quick," Santana said.Authorities have been searching the Calumet City area over the last several days for Franklin, 28, who was reported missing Sept. 19 after failing to show up for a business meeting. Her car was found abandoned in Hammond on Saturday.Franklin, a pharmaceuticals representative who lived near the University of Illinois at Chicago campus, had filed a police report about threatening phone calls she received from a man she dated briefly. Since her disappearance, family members have been papering the city with fliers. Her family also offered a $10,000 reward for information on her whereabouts and set up a Web site aimed at generating leads.Franklin was last heard from Sept. 18, when she called her boyfriend in Milwaukee. Three vague text messages from her phone later that night indicated she was having dinner and would call her family and boss back. They didn't hear from her again.Franklin works for Eli Lilly & Co. She is a graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor High School and has a bachelor's degree in advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.