A man charged last year in a 1992 cold case murder in Niles died last week while awaiting trial.
Richard J. Sisto, 73, was pronounced dead Jan. 26 at Stroger Hospital while in Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department custody, a statement from the department said.
Sisto had been in sheriff’s police custody since Nov. 24 when he was extradited from Texas on charges of first degree murder. He had spent most of his time in Stroger Hospital receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness, according to the sheriff’s department.
Autopsy results were pending, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Sisto, who appeared in a police booking photo last year using oxygen for breathing assistance, was charged with murder by Niles police in the November 1992 strangulation death of Helen Cardwell, 35, in her room at the Leaning Tower YMCA residential building.
Police said DNA from the crime scene, which was entered into a nationwide database in 2021, matched Sisto, who had previously been convicted of sexual assault in Texas.
A Cook County grand jury indicted Sisto on murder charges in December, according to court records. An arraignment was scheduled for Dec. 16, but court records did not indicate whether a plea was entered.
Sisto had a court appearance scheduled for Jan. 27, the day after he died, records showed.
Though the case will now never go to trial, Niles Mayor George Alpogianis said this week that he believed the evidence against Sisto was strong.
“I’m very proud of the Niles police for cracking the cold case and bringing this man to the beginnings of justice,” Alpogianis said. “Also important is the fact that (Helen Cardwell’s) family was able to receive some closure and truly know what happened.”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Helen Cardwell and her family,” Niles Deputy Police Chief Nick Zakula said in an emailed statement.
Cardwell, a native of West Virginia who had previously lived in New Jersey, was found strangled to death in her sixth-floor room inside the residential portion of the Leaning Tower YMCA, 6300 W. Touhy Ave., on Nov. 8, 1992, police said. Cardwell’s sister and brother-in-law discovered her body during a weekly visit, Det. Sgt. Mike Boba of the Niles Police Department said during a press conference last year.
According to Niles police reports obtained by Pioneer Press/Chicago Tribune, Cardwell’s hands had been bound with a pink shirt and a red sweater was found tied around her mouth. These were among the items that were submitted for DNA testing, the report indicated.
Cardwell had been living at the Leaning Tower after undergoing treatment at a Park Ridge rehabilitation center for a stroke she suffered the previous year, family members told police.
According to police reports, in 1992 Sisto worked at the Jewel store in Village Crossing, located just blocks from the Leaning Tower YMCA, and lived in a nearby Chicago neighborhood. He had been released in April of that year from a Texas prison where he had served a sentence for aggravated sexual assault, according to Texas Department of Public Safety criminal records.
While in prison, Sisto was accused of raping a female prison guard in 1984, the Chicago Tribune reported on Aug. 28, 2005.
At the time that Niles police announced murder charges against Sisto in October 2021, he was in police custody in Harris County Texas on a parole violation warrant, police said.
