Illinois State Police officers found a person dead inside a disabled passenger car sitting in the southbound lanes of I-94 at 35th Street on Sunday, prompting a death investigation on Chicago’s South Side. Troopers say the vehicle had stopped along one of the busiest stretches of highway in the city, right where the Dan Ryan Expressway runs past the ballpark and a major transit hub.
The discovery, first reported by ABC7 Chicago, has officers conducting a death investigation on the interstate, also known as the Dan Ryan Expressway. Illinois State Police said there was no danger to the public as the investigation continues. The agency has not released details about the identity of the person found inside the car, the cause of death, or how long the vehicle may have been stopped before troopers arrived.
Why State Troopers, Not Chicago Police, Lead the Investigation
Jurisdiction over state highways and interstate corridors across Cook County, including I-94, belongs to Illinois State Police Troop 3, based in Des Plaines, rather than the Chicago Police Department. That authority is why troopers, not city officers, are handling the death investigation near 35th Street. Troop 3 also oversees criminal investigations along interstate corridors throughout the county, and in May the unit launched a specialized expressway enforcement surge targeting high-speed driving, shoulder violations, and violent crime across Chicagoland interstates, relying in part on increased overnight patrols.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office holds statutory authority to investigate any sudden, unexpected, or suspicious death in the county and typically performs forensic examinations within two days to establish a cause and manner of death. The office processes more than 16,000 reported deaths annually and accepts roughly 5,600 for formal forensic investigation. It remains unknown whether the person found in the disabled car near 35th Street died of medical distress, some other non-criminal cause, or something investigators are still working to determine.
A Dangerous Stretch of Highway Near the Ballpark
The 35th Street stretch of the Dan Ryan sits along the border of the Armour Square and Bronzeville neighborhoods, directly adjacent to Guaranteed Rate Field, the CTA Red Line’s Sox-35th station, and the Metra Rock Island line — a dense corridor where highway traffic converges with elevated trains and regional rail. The Dan Ryan itself is among the most congested roadways in the state, carrying an average daily traffic volume exceeding 300,000 vehicles across its 14-lane express-local system, according to a personal injury law firm’s roadway data cited alongside Wikipedia’s entry on the expressway…