A Chicago woman who had been missing since Saturday was found Monday at the bottom of a high-rise condominium complex trash chute.
Florence Banta, 80, who lived on the 17th floor of the Astor Condominiums in the 1500 block of North Astor Street was reported missing by her daughter, Barbara Laken on Sunday when she went to pick her up for Easter brunch.
The initial missing person report stated that Banta was fragile and suffering with anxiety and that she would walk around her Gold Coast neighborhood with no money or ID.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
It wasn’t till Monday around 10:30 a.m., before her body was found on the ground floor of the trash chute by a building engineer, reports ABC Chicago news.
One unnamed individual told WGNTV that the trash chute on the 17th floor where Banta lived is spring-loaded to shut quickly.
Woman found dead at bottom of trash chute
Woman found dead at bottom of trash chute
© 2012 Nokia© 2013 Microsoft Corporation
Location: 1500 North Astor Street, chicago
41.909805297852 ; -87.627937316895
Other residents stated that the chute is 1 ½ foot square and 4 feet off the ground making it impossible to fall in.
Laken told the Chicago Tribune that the trash chute on her mother’s floor was “abnormally large”
“It’s 4 feet off the ground and very, very wide. You could fit a grown man’s body through it,” she said.
Just last February, 16-year-old Charlie Manley who had Down syndrome and autism fell 46 floors to his death inside the trash chute.
“My mother was such a clean and neat woman — she was like a Martha Stewart,” Laken said. “Every hair on her head was always in place. The thought of her landing in garbage is unthinkable.”
An autopsy is scheduled to determine exactly how she died.
