Thurza Weatherspoon started to worry around the Fourth of July.
By then, it had been days since she last saw her daughter, whom she lived with, come home. Call after call to the 38-year-old went unanswered. She waited as long as she could, thinking maybe her daughter would come back, but a numb feeling set in.
Weatherspoon said she alerted authorities of her daughter’s disappearance July 10. A day later, her daughter’s body was found in an alley on the city’s South Side.
Police said a body was discovered in a garbage can in an alley in the 700 block of West 54th Street just before 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Family and local officials identified the deceased as Zenobia Weatherspoon. According to court records, Zenobia Weatherspoon lived in the 800 block of West 54th Place in the New City neighborhood, about a block away from where police found the garbage can.
In the wake of the discovery, state Sen. Lakesia Collins in a post to social media Sunday said the loss was “profoundly personal.”
“Zenobia was a beloved member of our community who even babysat my boys,” she wrote. Collins said she watched Zenobia Weatherspoon grow up in her childhood neighborhood on the city’s South Side. “She did not deserve this, and she was loved by so many.”
Collins said her heart goes out to “everyone who loved ‘Zee.’”
Thurza Weatherspoon described her daughter as a “good-hearted person,” who loved drawing, reading and braiding hair. Her daughter was just a regular 38-year-old woman, living her life.
“We all can’t understand it,” she said.
Wentworth Area (Area 1) detectives are investigating, police said. As of Monday afternoon, autopsy results are still pending, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
