A Chicago woman was found guilty on Monday of murdering her landlord and dismembering her body in an apartment in West Rogers Park in 2022.
Sandra Kolalou was found guilty of all charges by a Cook County jury, including first-degree murder and concealment of a homicide. The jury received the case about 2:08 p.m. Monday, and the verdict was pronounced around 10 p.m. that same day.
On October 10, 2022, Chicago police investigated a property where Kolalou rented a room and discovered 69-year-old Frances Walker’s head, arms, and legs put into a kitchen freezer, officials said.
Timeline of Frances Walker’s death
Around 2:30 a.m. on Monday, October 10, 2022, tenants in the 5900 block of North Washtenaw Avenue heard screaming. Police claim they texted and called their landlord, identified as Frances Walker, to ensure everything was fine.
Later that day, around 6 or 7 p.m., after being unable to contact Walker throughout the day, the tenants called police to report him missing.
When authorities arrived, Kolalou was leaving the house and heading to a tow truck that she had phoned and paid for with Walker’s credit card, police said later.
According to police, authorities searching the property on the city’s North Side first found no indication of foul play. However, after discovering the bloody rags in the beach trash can, cops conducted another search and discovered more blood inside Kolalou’s chamber.
Officers later located part of Walker’s remains in a freezer on the property.
Based on early evidence, authorities believe Walker was murdered in her bedroom and dismembered on the first floor of the home.
According to police, the dissection appears to have been carried out with “large butcher knives.”
When asked why no other occupants in the house had observed Walker’s dismemberment, CPD stated the following.
“The way the home is set up, there are a handful of apartments on the top floor – call it the second floor – and then on the floor where the victim lived, Sandra also lived. Then there was a tenant in the basement. And there were deadbolts to ensure privacy,” said Chicago Police Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan.
“The residents were extremely cooperative.” When they heard the scream and woke up, they quickly texted the victim. began calling the victim. The victim did not respond. Some SMS were sent back from the victim’s phone. According to what we know today, the defendant was sending an SMS from the victim’s phone without answering it,” he continued.
Kolalou’s Defense
Prosecutors claimed that just before Walker was last seen, she was heard arguing with Kolalou over receiving an eviction notice. Brown claims it is unlikely because Kolalou was seen on surveillance video attending a birthday party at a motel in Warrenville at the time the claimed argument occurred.
Tenants phoned police several times about the wellbeing of Walker, who shared the apartment with Kolalou, but they all departed because there was no evidence of a crime.
Tenants in the building were so concerned, according to prosecutors, that they followed Kolalou to Foster Beach after she called a tow truck driver to take her car from a parking lot there to a mechanic and saw her deposit a garbage bag in a trash can that was later discovered to contain bloody rags.
Kolalou was detained after allegedly threatening the tow truck driver with a knife when he refused to relocate her car after she was denied servicing by the mechanic, prompting him to contact for police, who were nearby.
However, Brown stated that the tow truck driver informed reporters that “he did not see a knife and assumed she had a knife because he was fearful after receiving information from the tenants and the police that she had possibly harmed Walker.”
Brown stated that in the absence of a threat, officers had no reasonable cause to arrest Kolalou.
Her next court date is set for June 6.