Photo: Getty Images
Two brothers from Chicago are facing charges for concealing the deaths of their mother and sister for more than seven years. Authorities found the bodies in their backyard last summer following a welfare visit at their home.
Michael Lelko, 45, was charged with two felony counts of concealment of a death and could face federal charges for continuing to cash his mother's social security checks after she died in 2015. Charges against his brother, John Lelko, are pending, officials said.
Officers were dispatched to check on the house after the water company noticed that almost no water was being used in the home. When investigators searched their home, they found multiple jars of urine and numerous cats and dogs running around the property. The brothers told officers that their sister had pushed their mother down a flight of stairs in 2015, killing her. They said their sister died in 2019 and admitted that both bodies were buried in the backyard.
"They were duct-taped completely, wrapped in blankets, placed inside, bent over, folded in half, and buried in the yard," said Lyons Police Chief Michael Herion.
The two men are not facing murder charges because the bodies were too decomposed to determine how they died.