UPDATED JUNE 4, 2012
Forest Park Fire Department responded to a report of a burning home in the 1400 block of Marengo Avenue June 1 at 10:18 a.m. The two-story frame house sustained damage on the first and second floors, according to Police Detective Sgt. Mike Keating, who was on the scene after fire trucks had left.
Emergency responders broke windows on the first and second floors and forced open the front and back doors to fight the fire, which occurred two blocks south of Betsy Ross Elementary School on the last day of school for District 91.
The house was inhabited, but no one was home at the time of the fire, police said. Visible through the open front door was an empty two-liter soda bottle on a table.
The house was owned by the late Shirley Jahoda, who died in January.
Dispatchers told fire and police that someone from the house had called police at 3:30 a.m. the night before, suspicious that someone was breaking into their garage. Police found two spent shotgun shells in the yard the night before.
A small hibachi grill was overturned on the roof of the back porch near glass sliding doors on the second floor, but police said the grill was not the source of the fire.
“The grill was empty,” said Keating.
Keating said the fire was under investigation.
This article was updated on June 4, 2012
