(DailyChive.com) – Investigators are still trying to piece together the details of what was initially thought to be a freak accident that resulted in a woman’s death at an airport baggage carousel in Chicago, Illinois, but may have been a suicide.
On Thursday, Aug. 8, a woman in her 50s was found dead at the O’Hare International Airport by an employee while inspecting the Terminal 5 baggage area. The employee discovered the body in a restricted area of the airport early in the morning, around 7:45 AM. Fire crews and law enforcement responded and pronounced the woman dead at the scene. They noted that the area was off-limits to passengers, although it wasn’t highly secured.
The death seemed like a mystery at first. The woman was captured on security camera footage entering the area around 2:30 AM but how she became entangled in the baggage carousel conveyor belt could not be determined as the moment of her death wasn’t caught on camera.
Chicago police or the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office did not immediately release an official cause of death of the woman’s identity. Authorities said the woman wasn’t an employee and it remains unclear why she came to the airport or how she ended up “pinned” inside the machine. Reporters contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) about the death, but it confirmed the woman wasn’t an employee and therefore it would not investigate the incident.
On Friday, Aug. 9, investigators reported that they believed the woman’s death may have been a suicide rather than an accident. When the medical examiner’s report came in, her death was determined to be from asphyxiation from hanging, most likely from suicide.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office also revealed the victim’s identity as Virginia Christine Vinton, a 57-year-old from Waxhaw, North Carolina. According to police, Vinton was at the airport overnight and did sneak into an employees-only area, but why she did so remains a mystery. The medical examiner’s report also did not clarify if Vinton’s death by asphyxiation occurred before or after her body became stuck in the baggage machine.
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