Chicago police officers found a 27-year-old man dead inside a home in the 8500 block of South Constance Avenue just before 1 a.m. Friday, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office has since identified him as Justice Newman, and the cause of his death remains unclear as investigators work to piece together what happened.
Chicago police said a man was found dead inside a South Side home, according to ABC7 Chicago, which reported that detectives are conducting a death investigation that is now pending autopsy results. Authorities have not provided further details on what led to Newman's death, and the outlet's reporting does not indicate whether foul play is suspected.
The scene sits within Stony Island Park, a residential enclave inside Chicago's Avalon Park community area bounded by 79th Street, 87th Street, Stony Island Avenue, and South Chicago Avenue, per the Chicago Community Gardeners Association. The block is lined with single-family homes built in the early 1960s, typically spanning 1,400 to 1,500 square feet, according to property records reviewed by Redfin.
A Chicago Native and Former College Athlete
Newman grew up in Chicago and graduated from King College Prep High School in 2016 before heading to Saint John's University in Minnesota, where he played varsity-reserve basketball while studying computer science from 2016 to 2018, according to Saint John's University Athletics. His time on the court is documented in his player profile maintained by RealGM.
Why the Cause of Death Remains Unknown
Under Cook County Medical Examiner's Office protocols, when a cause of death cannot be determined during an initial autopsy, pathologists issue a pending death certificate while toxicological, histological, or police investigative findings are completed. That process, outlined by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, can take several weeks or months to resolve.
The medical examiner's office investigates more than 16,000 reported deaths annually across Cook County's 5.2 million residents, accepting roughly 5,600 cases for medicolegal investigation and performing autopsies on about half of those, per the same office. Under the Cook County Medical Examiner's Ordinance, the office holds statutory authority to investigate any sudden, unexpected, unattended, or suspicious death in order to establish both cause and manner of death, whether that turns out to be natural, accident, suicide, homicide, or undetermined.
A Block With a History of Violence
The address falls under the patrol jurisdiction of the Chicago Police Department's 4th District, headquartered at 2255 East 103rd Street and responsible for Far South Side neighborhoods including Stony Island Park. The 8500 block of South Constance Avenue has seen violent incidents before: in January 2014, a 22-year-old man was wounded in the shoulder in a shooting there that led to a high-profile mistaken identity arrest based on social media photos, as reported by DNAinfo Chicago. Charges against the wrongly identified teenager were later dismissed in court.
A separate shooting in the same month left a man in his 20s wounded while he was shoveling snow outside a home on the same block, according to CBS Chicago, during a weekend that saw four people killed across the city. More recently, on August 2, less than three weeks before Newman's death, police responded to a daylight assault further north on the 7100 block of South Constance Avenue, where four attackers beat a pedestrian with his own cane. Chicago Police Area One detectives released surveillance images afterward seeking the assailants.
No further details on Newman's death have been released, and detectives have not said whether they consider the circumstances suspicious. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office has not yet issued a final ruling on cause or manner of death, and toxicology results are still pending.
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