BRIEF: Woman missing from nursing home found dead in shuttered health center

Oct. 30--A woman who was reported missing after leaving a nursing home last week has been identified as the woman found dead Monday in a shuttered Bronzeville health facility.

Ernestine Booker, 67, was last seen on Oct. 23 in the 400 block of East 41st Street in the Bronzeville neighborhood, Chicago police said in a missing persons alert distributed on Thursday. Her family members told WGN she left her nursing home that day.

The alert said Booker suffered from dementia.

Booker's body was found around 11 a.m. at the former Sykes Center at 2555 S. King Drive, about two and a half miles from where she was reported missing, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner's office.

The medical examiner's office has not yet ruled on a cause and manner of death for Booker. An autopsy performed Thursday was pending toxicology and further studies.

A police spokesman said Monday that foul play was not suspected.

Detectives are conducting a death investigation.

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