Woman found in O’Hare Airport conveyor belt machinery died by suicide

A 57-year-old woman died by suicide after becoming pinned in a conveyor belt Thursday at O’Hare International Airport, officials said.

Virginia Christine Vinton, of Waxhaw, North Carolina, died in the incident, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

An autopsy Friday determined the cause of her death was asphyxiation from being hanged, according to the medical examiner’s office, which said she died by suicide.

Vinton was last seen on camera at 2:27 a.m. entering a restricted area at the International Terminal, Chicago police said earlier.

Larry Langford, a spokesperson for the Chicago Fire Department, said firefighters were called to the airport around 7:45 a.m. and discovered the woman entangled in a conveyor belt system in a baggage room.

“She was pinned in machinery,” said Larry Merritt, another spokesperson for the fire department, earlier. Vinton was dead on the scene.

Vinton was not an airport employee, officials said.

The baggage room wasn’t publicly accessible, Langford said, and it’s not clear how she found her way into it.

A source familiar with the situation says the woman apparently tried to access the employee side of Terminal 5 at multiple locations.

“She was trying to gain access at multiple points,” said the source. “They are not sure what her motive was. She was trying to get to the secure side of the airport.”

Vinton eventually climbed to that side through a door that opens and closes as bags go through onto the public baggage claim area. The baggage conveyor system on the secure, non-public side is “way more dangerous because there are a lot of moving parts,” the source said, and is multiple levels.

The source said it is unclear if any workers noticed her on the secure side, since the number of people working in that area would correlate with the number of flights coming through. However, most of those people would be focused on “doing their jobs” and not necessarily checking to see if everyone in the area had the correct badge.

Contributing: Mary Norkol.