The lonely deaths of two brothers 15 years apart: ‘Nobody even bothered to check on them’

Jon Manos’ decomposed body was found in layers of coats, hinting that he likely died weeks or months ago when the weather was cold. His home since adolescence, in the Aetna section of Miller in Gary, had no electrical power or heat, possibly for months, according to Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey. It was filled “several feet deep” with garbage, debris, and decades of junk, she said. “He was found in uninhabitable conditions. We had to cut a hole in the exterior of the house to pull his body out of the bathroom,” Frey told me Monday after she issued a press release to request help in finding Manos’ next of kin. Manos, who I knew in my younger days, was 66. His younger brother, Mark Manos, was my best friend from our teenage years into our thirties. I was at their Aetna home many times, back when the brothers’ lovable grandmother watched over them. “Don’t be out late, Mark!” she would yell as he walked out the door. “I won’t, grandma!” Mark would yell back. Jon Manos, who was 10 years older than Mark, was usually working on one of his beloved cars – a ’56 Ford Thunderbird and ’74 Bricklin – on their small piece of property in the 4500 block of 10th Ave. Jon usually didn’t say much to me, or to anybody outside of his close circle. The brothers’ father, George, was already out of the picture even back in the 1970s. I never heard a good thing about him. Their mother had mental illness problems and she was institutionalized when Mark was a boy, he often told me. We were close friends, sharing every thought, but some thoughts Mark kept to himself. He felt ashamed talking about his mother’s mental illness. I didn’t pry. I just listened. Since boyhood, Mark was a high-octane motorhead, always talking about cars. He had the uncanny ability to figure out the make, model and year of any car simply from its headlights. In the dark. Mark was the kind of teenager who kept a nerdy-looking pair of eyeglasses in his car in case his brother was around. Mark hated wearing those glasses, but he feared his brother’s wrath even more. To this day, every time I see an older model car, I think of Mark and his beloved 1959 Ford Fairlane with the large light-green fenders and the panel front seat. He drove it only on special occasions or when Jon wasn’t around to yell at him. Mark cared about proper etiquette in his own way, politely pacing himself while eating so he finished when you did. And “Uncle Mark” often baby-sat my two kids when they were young, telling them he has only one rule: “There are no rules!” They loved it. They loved him. Mark also was into David Bowie, Rickie Lee Jones and Todd Rundgren long before they were mainstream. He also attended their concerts alone, by choice. Like his brother, he was an unapologetic loner. This obviously played into how he died, in similar fashion to his brother, Jon. Alone, surrounded in squalor and question marks. On April 10, 2003, police found Mark’s decomposed body in his Chicago high-rise apartment, which was owned by his aunt. He died weeks earlier after an apparent heart attack, police said. Mark was 41. It had been a couple of years before his death since we last spoke. I really don’t know why. It still haunts me. It’s now been 15 years and I’m still stunned by Mark’s death. And now by Jon’s death. “It’s so sad how some people have no one. They die all alone,” said Frey, who deals with such cases on a regular basis. On May 23, police conducted a welfare check at Jon’s home in Aetna. Firefighters had to be called to extricate Jon’s body, which has been at the county morgue since then. The coroner’s office is waiting for results from a toxicology test on his body. If it comes back negative, his death will be labeled “by natural causes.” If Jon is not claimed by a family member, his body will be respectfully cremated, Frey said. (His family is asked to call the Lake County Coroner’s Office at (219) 755-3265.) “Jon was a true loner,” said Cynthia Robbins, of Lake Station, who knew him socially. For work, he mostly installed drywall, paying his home’s utility bill at a local drug store. But he stopped making those payments a couple of years ago, she said. “He just dropped out of life about five years ago. I don’t know why,” she said. We will never know why. Mark once confided to me that he worried about inheriting his mother’s mental illness. He would joke about his habit of hoarding stuff and keeping it in his home, which was always buried in junk that he deemed important. I teased him but I didn’t fault him. Jon obviously had the same bad habit of hoarding, or a mental illness problem, only for much longer at the same home in Aetna. “Both brothers dying alone. How sad and troubling,” said Donn Taylor, of Reinholds, Pa., a friend of mine who also knew Mark since our childhood. “Nobody even bothered to check on them.” A former girlfriend of Jon’s told me she hadn’t seen him for a long time. Everyone I spoke with who once knew Jon told me the same thing. Their memories of him dated back decades, not days or months. The same fate happened to Mark before his death. He just slowly faded away, like a loved one in your rearview mirror. I don’t know the psychological demons that haunted both brothers. We didn’t talk much about it in the 1970s or ’80s. Sadly, mental illness continues to be stigmatized in our society, seemingly tucked away in a dark trunk of an abandoned car at a junkyard. Unfortunately, the lonely deaths of Jon and Mark Manos give us only a peek through the keyhole. We will never know why they died that way. That’s probably what they wanted.

Jon Manos’ decomposed body was found in layers of coats, hinting that he likely died weeks or months ago when the weather was cold. His home since adolescence, in the Aetna section of Miller in Gary, had no electrical power or heat, possibly for months, according to Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey. It was filled “several feet deep” with garbage, debris, and decades of junk, she said. “He was found in uninhabitable conditions. We had to cut a hole in the exterior of the house to pull his body out of the bathroom,” Frey told me Monday after she issued a press release to request help in finding Manos’ next of kin. Manos, who I knew in my younger days, was 66. His younger brother, Mark Manos, was my best friend from our teenage years into our thirties. I was at their Aetna home many times, back when the brothers’ lovable grandmother watched over them. “Don’t be out late, Mark!” she would yell as he walked out the door. “I won’t, grandma!” Mark would yell back. Jon Manos, who was 10 years older than Mark, was usually working on one of his beloved cars – a ’56 Ford Thunderbird and ’74 Bricklin – on their small piece of property in the 4500 block of 10th Ave. Jon usually didn’t say much to me, or to anybody outside of his close circle. The brothers’ father, George, was already out of the picture even back in the 1970s. I never heard a good thing about him. Their mother had mental illness problems and she was institutionalized when Mark was a boy, he often told me. We were close friends, sharing every thought, but some thoughts Mark kept to himself. He felt ashamed talking about his mother’s mental illness. I didn’t pry. I just listened. Since boyhood, Mark was a high-octane motorhead, always talking about cars. He had the uncanny ability to figure out the make, model and year of any car simply from its headlights. In the dark. Mark was the kind of teenager who kept a nerdy-looking pair of eyeglasses in his car in case his brother was around. Mark hated wearing those glasses, but he feared his brother’s wrath even more. To this day, every time I see an older model car, I think of Mark and his beloved 1959 Ford Fairlane with the large light-green fenders and the panel front seat. He drove it only on special occasions or when Jon wasn’t around to yell at him. Mark cared about proper etiquette in his own way, politely pacing himself while eating so he finished when you did. And “Uncle Mark” often baby-sat my two kids when they were young, telling them he has only one rule: “There are no rules!” They loved it. They loved him. Mark also was into David Bowie, Rickie Lee Jones and Todd Rundgren long before they were mainstream. He also attended their concerts alone, by choice. Like his brother, he was an unapologetic loner. This obviously played into how he died, in similar fashion to his brother, Jon. Alone, surrounded in squalor and question marks. On April 10, 2003, police found Mark’s decomposed body in his Chicago high-rise apartment, which was owned by his aunt. He died weeks earlier after an apparent heart attack, police said. Mark was 41. It had been a couple of years before his death since we last spoke. I really don’t know why. It still haunts me. It’s now been 15 years and I’m still stunned by Mark’s death. And now by Jon’s death. “It’s so sad how some people have no one. They die all alone,” said Frey, who deals with such cases on a regular basis. On May 23, police conducted a welfare check at Jon’s home in Aetna. Firefighters had to be called to extricate Jon’s body, which has been at the county morgue since then. The coroner’s office is waiting for results from a toxicology test on his body. If it comes back negative, his death will be labeled “by natural causes.” If Jon is not claimed by a family member, his body will be respectfully cremated, Frey said. (His family is asked to call the Lake County Coroner’s Office at (219) 755-3265.) “Jon was a true loner,” said Cynthia Robbins, of Lake Station, who knew him socially. For work, he mostly installed drywall, paying his home’s utility bill at a local drug store. But he stopped making those payments a couple of years ago, she said. “He just dropped out of life about five years ago. I don’t know why,” she said. We will never know why. Mark once confided to me that he worried about inheriting his mother’s mental illness. He would joke about his habit of hoarding stuff and keeping it in his home, which was always buried in junk that he deemed important. I teased him but I didn’t fault him. Jon obviously had the same bad habit of hoarding, or a mental illness problem, only for much longer at the same home in Aetna. “Both brothers dying alone. How sad and troubling,” said Donn Taylor, of Reinholds, Pa., a friend of mine who also knew Mark since our childhood. “Nobody even bothered to check on them.” A former girlfriend of Jon’s told me she hadn’t seen him for a long time. Everyone I spoke with who once knew Jon told me the same thing. Their memories of him dated back decades, not days or months. The same fate happened to Mark before his death. He just slowly faded away, like a loved one in your rearview mirror. I don’t know the psychological demons that haunted both brothers. We didn’t talk much about it in the 1970s or ’80s. Sadly, mental illness continues to be stigmatized in our society, seemingly tucked away in a dark trunk of an abandoned car at a junkyard. Unfortunately, the lonely deaths of Jon and Mark Manos give us only a peek through the keyhole. We will never know why they died that way. That’s probably what they wanted.