'A lot of potential evidence' recovered at Chicago home where family found slain

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Chicago police are expressing confidence that they will solve the murders of six family members killed in their Gage Park home last week.

Interim Superintendent John Escalante has hinted the killer or killers may have left important evidence behind.

On Tuesday, there was a very important meeting between detectives handling the case and crime lab personnel to go over all the evidence. FOX 32 talked with the superintendent about that and other aspects of the case, which he says is getting priority treatment and could lead to a break and an arrest.

A squad car keeps a watchful eye on the house where 6 members of the Martinez family were brutally murdered last week. But the key to solving this crime will be in what was found inside and is now being processed at the state crime lab.

“A lot of potential evidence was recovered at the scene, the meeting this afternoon was just to sit down with the state crime lab people and work on prioritizing what we think should be processed next. We've got items we think might lead to a break in the case,” Escalante said.

But what that break might be, or who it might lead to, is information police are hesitant to talk about.

FOX 32: Do you believe more than one person was involved in these murders?

“That's hard to say, we haven't ruled anything out, we haven't ruled any motive out,” Escalante responded. “All signs indicate that these poor victims either knew who the offender may have been or the offender was let in somehow.”

All the victims were stabbed to death except for 32-year-old Maria Martinez, who was shot multiple times.

FOX 32: Was she shot and killed execution style?

“Again, it is a sensitive subject. I understand the public has a lot of questions on that, but in the right time we'll be able to discuss that in greater detail,” Escalante said.

The superintendent would also not comment on whether there were signs of a struggle. But he said with children among the victims, it's an extra motivation for detectives to find out who did this.

FOX 32: How confident are you that you will solve this case and solve it soon?

“I think we're pretty confident, it is going to take a little bit of time, obviously it is quite a horrific scene and quite a lot of potential evidence was processed,” Escalante said.

Chicago Police are reviewing security videos taken on CTA buses and have downloaded video from a camera on a light pole at 57th and California for evidence that might lead to the killer of a family of six in Gage Park, a department spokesman said Tuesday.

Detectives routinely look for video surveillance for potential leads in killings, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. “This isn’t anything unusual,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The superintendent also reiterated and emphasized that he does not believe there is any danger to anyone else in this neighborhood. But the motive for this horrible crime remains a mystery, for now.