Police investigate homicide after man found battered in Uptown

Detectives are conducting a homicide investigation after a man was found battered inside his apartment last month in the North Side Uptown neighborhood.

Officers arrived about 3:45 p.m. Dec. 26 to conduct a well-being on 63-year-old Keith West at his apartment in the 4500 block of North Sheridan Road, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Someone had called police after they could not make contact with West.

He was discovered inside the apartment “seriously battered,” police said.

West was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 9:41 a.m. Dec. 28, the medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy was inconclusive, with results pending further studies, according to the medical examiner’s office.

However, police said they are investigating the death as a homicide, though as of Thursday afternoon, no one was in custody, police said.