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Police identify frozen body

FREE PRESS STAFF REPORT • January 30, 2009 Police have identified the man found frozen this week inside an elevator shaft at an abandoned warehouse in Detroit. The man is a 56-year old River Rouge man. The man's family is to positively identify the body this afternoon. The cause of death has not yet been determined. Come back to freep.com for more information. ----

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Family of man found frozen says he wasn't homeless

The man whose body was found frozen inside an elevator shaft in an abandoned Detroit warehouse was identified Friday as 56-year old Johnnie Redding of River Rouge. Authorities Thursday speculated that Redding was likely homeless, but his brother told the Free Press today that that was not the case. "That's what I don't understand. They are saying he was homeless. I couldn't undertand it,'' said Homer Redding, 59, of River Rouge. "He had too many places he could live.'' Homer Redding said his brother was a graduate of River Rouge High School and worked years ago at now-closed Detroit Steel. He said Johnnie Redding then worked as a handyman. "Anything anybody needed he would do it,'' Homer Redding said from the family's home on Holford Street in River Rouge. He said the last time he saw his brother was in September, on Johnnie Redding's birthday. "He was going out to celebrate his birthday and I was going to work,''he said. Johnnie Redding lived at various places in the metro Detroit area, including the family home he grew up in on Holford Street, with friends and girlfriends and spent some time living with a sister in Georgia. Homer Redding said his family is puzzled as to why the man was inside the abandoned building. Redding's cause of death had not yet been determined Friday by the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office. Only his legs protruded from a pool of frozen water where his body was found Wednesday inside the former Detroit Public Schools' Roosevelt warehouse on 14th Street and Michigan Avenue that is full of debris. A wallet found on Johnnie Redding led authorities to his family, who identified his body this afternoon. Homer Redding said funeral arrangements are incomplete. Johnnie Redding is survived by a daughter, Tamika.