A Kenilworth woman was found shot to death early Saturday in the bedroom of her home, and police late in the day had no leads in the killing.
The body of Diane B. Davis, 46, of 150 Oxford Rd., was discovered by her 18-year-old son, Nathaniel, about 8 a.m. Saturday, when he stopped by the home to pick up some clothes, Kenilworth police said.
Nearby residents said Davis, past president of the Neighbors of Kenilworth women`s club, could have been dead for several days, because mail was piling up outside the home, a newspaper was still on the porch, and window shades had not been moved for several days at the two-story beige, Spanish-style stucco home.
Kenilworth Police Chief Gary Wolff said Saturday he was continuing the investigation, and had ruled out Davis` ex-husband as a suspect.
Davis, who had been divorced for five years, had returned Monday from a trip to the Soviet Union with a male friend, neighbors said. She had also been seeing another man, they said.
She was last seen alive Wednesday evening by her son, and neighbors said they had heard seemingly friendly voices of a few people inside the home Wednesday night.
Davis` son, who lived with his father during the summer, had been away on a trip with his father before finding his mother`s body. Davis also had a 20- year-old daughter, Marie, who was in Boston at the time of the slaying.
Friends who lived nearby or who were members of the women`s club described Davis as a personable homemaker and frequent world traveler, formerly accompanied by her mother and more recently by male companions.
She also had worked with her father in his business until he died about three to five years ago, they said.
”Diane was very sociable and somewhat introspective and certainly very nice to people,” said Suzanne Hales, who knew Davis through Kenilworth Neighbors. ”She was a real lady. She always looked terrific.”
Neighbors, who drove and rode bicycles by the home Saturday and talked quietly outside the yellow police tape, said they were shocked to hear of a murder in the small, close-knit town, Chicago`s wealthiest per-capita suburb. ”It was just kind of a shock because this kind of stuff doesn`t happen in Kenilworth,” said Jay Hirschle, a neighbor of the victim. ”When this stuff happens, people in Kenilworth don`t really want to talk about it.”
But few neighbors were taking extra safety precautions Saturday. Many said they thought it was the result of a domestic dispute.
According to neighbors, Davis was an occasional private French tutor, and one former neighbor who took lessons from her recalled Davis` crisp French accent.
An impeccable dresser with ”never a hair out of place,” she was skilled at gourmet cooking, according to neighbors who were occasionally invited to her home for dinner.
While she was raising her children, she ventured into Kenilworth`s exclusive social circles, serving as president of the Neighbors of Kenilworth from 1978 to 1980. For a short while, she was involved in a Kenilworth garden club.
She drifted away from the social organizations after her divorce, neighbors said. But she continued living in the home she and her ex-husband, J. Nat Davis Jr. of Northbrook, bought about 20 years ago, so that her teenage children could finish their high school years at New Trier. Her son would live with her during the school year but stay with his father during the summer, neighbors said.
Her ex-husband retired early after selling a family insurance business, and his brother still lives in Kenilworth not far from the Davis home, neighbors said.
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Her son had been accepted and is scheduled to attend Vanderbilt University, and her daughter, who attends Boston University, was living and working there this summer, neighbors said.
Police Saturday were digging in the back yard of Davis` home, investigating a scrape mark on the driveway and checking the garbage for clues. They removed Davis` body from the home about 1 p.m. and emptied her mailbox about 5:30 p.m., apparently in search of clues. She had not been sexually molested, they said.
Davis` murder was only the third in the history of Kenilworth. The most recent murder was that of former Sen. Charles Percy`s daughter Valerie, who was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in 1966 in her family`s lakefront mansion. That murder has never been solved.