CHICAGO — Regina Michalski made homemade kolaczki and planted beautiful flowers in her Northwest Side backyard every year. Born in Poland in 1926, the “very smart” 96-year-old retired Motorola technician was fluent in German and Russian and lived through the Nazi occupation during World War II, her relatives said.
Many “wonderful’' but distant memories are all that remain Wednesday after Michalski’s body was found in a freezer earlier this week and her daughter has been charged with concealing a death, Chicago police said.
Eva Bratcher, 69, was additionally charged with possessing a fraudulent ID card, police said in a statement. Bratcher was scheduled to appear before a judge on Thursday, police said.
Police said Bratcher concealed the death of the 96-year-old and moved the victim’s body after her death at their home on West Melrose Street.
Police responded to the first floor of a home on Melrose about 4:35 p.m. Monday, where they discovered the woman unresponsive.
The name of the woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene, was not being officially released by the Cook County medical examiner’s office, but relatives of Regina Michalski believe it is her.
Autopsy results that will determine the cause and manner of her death were not available yet, according to the medical examiner’s office.
As of Wednesday afternoon, detectives were speaking to a person of interest in the case, Chicago police spokesperson Kellie Bartoli said earlier.
Sabrina Watson, Michalski’s maternal granddaughter, called Chicago police on Monday when she began getting a bad feeling and worrying more and more about Michalski, who lives with Watson's mother.
“I just knew she was no longer with us,” Watson told the Tribune.
Watson, who has not been in contact with Bratcher, who is her mother, and is not on speaking terms with her, also hadn’t seen her grandmother since at least 2011. She decided to have officers do a well-being check.
They knocked on the door but no one answered, Watson said they told her. Behind the apartment building, where the two women live and rent out two apartments, there is a yard and a detached garage with an unlocked door.
“They found several freezers and in one was my grandmother,” Watson said, adding they did not confirm to her it was actually her. The remains appeared to have been there for quite some time, Watson said.
“It’s got to be her,” Watson said, after learning the two tenants in the building had not seen her in years and her mother told conflicting stories about where she was: Once her mom told a neighbor asking if she’s seen Regina that Regina was taking a nap and wasn’t available, another time she told neighbors her mom was “fine” and living in a retirement home in Wisconsin while a third time she claimed Michalski had died, according to Watson.
Additionally, one of the tenants told Watson that about three years ago in summer they asked Watson’s mom where an “awful” smell was coming from. “She said it was just garbage,” Watson said.
Tenants in the building said they hadn’t seen her in years. “Not even a quick hello,” Watson said.
Watson said police went back to the first-floor apartment, broke in and found her mother “hiding” among some boxes.
“I’m still shaking,” said Watson, who added that the police want her to come back to Chicago soon. “I can’t sit still.”
“She was a formidable woman. She is very sweet and kind but if you come at her with something … she had a backbone. She didn’t let anybody control her,” Watson said.
Michalski was born in Poland, Watson said.
“She survived Nazi-occupied Poland with soldiers invading her house,” Watson said. “Her and her husband took my mother and her brother to the USA when my mom was 14, Watson said. No one ever shared many details about those times, she and another granddaughter, Diane Michalski, said.
Diane Michalski said she hadn’t been in touch in two decades but has many “wonderful” memories of when spent the first 20 years of her life living in an apartment above her in Chicago.
She would make homemade kolaczki and planted beautiful flowers in the backyard every year. “Impatiens — pink, red and white. On hot days she’d put a sheet over them to protect them from the sun.”
“She was a very smart woman. ”
She was fluent in German and Russian and worked for Motorola. Sometimes she would bring work home. “I remember her showing me this new technology … this very intricate detail to connect circuits to get them working. Kind of like when you open up the back of a computer.”
“She was very cool,’’ Michalski said. “My grandmother deserves better.”
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