Family finds loved one's body in abandoned SW Detroit building

DETROIT (WJBK) - A woman's body was found in an abandoned southwest Detroit building - now a family is asking how and wondering why.

They say they received a phone call Thursday evening from someone they know alerting them that the body of their loved one, Jackie Runels, was inside in a vacant building on Michigan Avenue. 

"To come here and find my baby sister deceased in back room with her clothes unzipped, her neck bent to the side," said Sampson Reynolds, her brother. "And she had so much damage to her face."

Her other brother Willie Runels is questioning why this building was not boarded up.

"There are several places where people can sleep, there is drug paraphernalia in the basement and there's hundreds and hundreds of condom packets, drug needles," Willie said. 

"This building definitely needs to be shut down."

Her brother says Jackie loved her family but was working to get over the murder of her father that was still unsolved.

"She was still going through trauma of my dad being killed and nothing was done about his murder," Willie said.

Police are still investigating. The family says they can't imagine why anyone would want to hurt Jackie. They say she just got her paycheck and they believed she could have been robbed.

"She had a lot of money on her when she left home," Willie said. "So we suspect that she was robbed because she had her fist in a balled up position."

As painful as it is, the family says they had to come here and search for answers. They believe one day justice will be served.

"My final words to whoever did this is not if but when and who catches you first," Willie said. "Because there's street justice and then there's the law."