March 14--The family of 20-year-old Tiara Groves, whose badly decomposed body was found in an abandoned warehouse in July 2013, cried outside a Cook County courtroom Friday after two people were charged with concealing her death -- but not with murder.
"This is not justice," said Groves' mother, Alice, surrounded by family at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Prosecutors identified the suspects as Leondra Martin, who the family said lived next door to Groves at the time of her disappearance, and Desmond Collins, a convicted sex offender.
The two told police they hid Groves' body in the warehouse in Chicago's Austin neighborhood after she overdosed in a Cicero motel. Her naked body was discovered 10 days after her disappearance with a gag loosely tied around her neck and thin wire wrapped around the arms of a nearby chair, prosecutors said. A toxicology test found heroin in her body.
The Cook County medical examiner's office found that the manner of death was homicide based on the body's condition and the nature of the surroundings but could not rule out a drug overdose or asphyxiation as the cause of death, prosecutors said.
Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil set bail for Martin at $100,000 and for Collins at $300,000. He is also charged with failing to register as a sex offender.
Chicago magazine highlighted the handling of Groves' case by Chicago police in a series last year that alleged the department underreported the number of homicides in 2013 by incorrectly classifying some as "death investigations." The department denied the allegations.
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
