A body found floating in the Chicago River on Tuesday was identified as a 31-year-old Massachusetts man reported missing Dec. 5 from the downtown hotel where he was attending a business conference.
When police marine unit officers pulled the body from the icy waters near Halsted and Division, they found Matthew Soumakis’ identification still in his pockets, police said. Soumakis’ cousin, who had helped coordinate a manhunt during the past two weeks, later identified the body.
Soumakis was last seen on a hotel security camera leaving the Sheraton Hotel & Towers, 301 E. North Water St., about
7:50 a.m. Dec. 5. He was filmed walking out of the hotel, a police detective said.
The discovery capped two weeks of fear and worry for the family, many of whom had traveled to Chicago to help search.
Soumakis’ cousin, Mark Berman, was driving to Chicago from his Indianapolis home Tuesday morning when his phone rang. It was the private investigator the family had hired, telling him police believed they had found Soumakis.
“My initial reaction was, at least we have him. … It wasn’t the result that we wanted, but you hear stories of people not finding their loved ones for 15 years,” Berman said.
Soumakis’ wife is four months’ pregnant. The couple lived with her 6-year-old daughter from a previous marriage in western Massachusetts.
