Authorities are investigating the deaths of two longtime Des Plaines residents whose bodies were discovered Wednesday in a home they shared on the village’s south side.
Des Plaines Police Sgt. Michael Lambeau late Wednesday said that the deaths were the result of a double homicide and that both had been shot.
Police also confirmed late Wednesday that the two victims were Richard Knight, 64, and Jack Winteringer, 67.
Authorities said they believed the men died about a day before their bodies were discovered around noon Wednesday. They also noted that there was no evidence of a break-in at the home.
According to Des Plaines Police Lt. Brendan Kelly, no weapons were recovered and there was nothing to suggest a struggle.
Neighbors described the men, close friends since childhood, as kind and sociable. They had lived in the same yellow-and-brown house in the 1800 block of Sycamore Street for two decades.
Over the years, according to Kelly, police have had no reports of problems at the house.
One of the men seemed always to be puttering with projects in the garage or around the house, and both men were active in the Catholic church, often taking meals to shut-ins, said Sean Bjornson, whose mother-in-law lives next door to the men and who knew the men well.
“They got along well, never had a problem,” Bjornson’s mother-in-law said. “We’ve been good neighbors with them ever since they moved in.”
The men were last seen Tuesday, when they let their dog out into their back yard.
A woman who has lived next door to the men for nearly 11 years said they had a definite daily routine.
But on Wednesday morning, said the woman, who asked not to be identified, something was amiss: The men’s garage door, which was always closed, had been left open all night, and both cars were still there.
The woman said she wondered why one of the men wasn’t at work.
The other man, according to neighbors, was retired.
According to Bjornson, the woman, suspicious about the open garage, said she went to the men’s home and knocked on the door, but got no response.
She also tried to reach them by phone.
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About noon, she said, Commonwealth Edison workers arrived at the men’s home to follow up on a work order.
The woman said the back door was unlocked, so she and the ComEd workers went inside, where they found one of the men slumped in a chair and the other lying face-down in a nearby hallway.
She said she didn’t see any blood, and didn’t notice anything out of place. She hurried home and called the police.
“I’m a little in shock,” she said. “They were very nice people.”
Bjornson said one of the men worked as a tool and die maker in Chicago, while the other was a retired state employee.
Bjornson said both men grew up in the same orphanage in Nebraska and bought the three-bedroom house on Sycamore together at least 20 years ago.
They entertained friends, frequently barbecued in the back yard in the summertime, and were often seen tending to their garden and lawn.