Update: Man clearing sidewalk in Niles finds woman

(NILES) A man shoveling snow outside a north suburban home made a grim discovery Monday when he discovered a woman’s dead body under the snow.

The man called 911 a few minutes before 6 p.m. Monday and said he found the body of 55-year-old Elizabeth A. Lutz in the snow in the parkway in the 6800 block of Dobson in Niles, according to Niles police.

A responding officer found “the victim lying face down in the parkway” and “attempted to get a response, but was unsuccessful,” a statement from police said.

The officer tried CPR, and the woman was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where she was pronounced dead an hour later, police said.

The man, the son-in-law of Lutz’s neighbor across the street, told police he started shoveling about 5:15 p.m. and saw something in the parkway he “thought was a garbage bag,” police said.

But “after about 40 minutes of shoveling, he noticed that what he thought was a garbage bag was the victim lying in the snow,” according to police.

There were no visible signs of injury on the body, and the woman was “appropriately dressed for the weather,” police said.

An autopsy conducted Tuesday was inconclusive, with results pending, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.