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Autopsy Delayed For Body Found Near Missing Woman's Home

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Authorities will have to wait another day before conducting autopsy on a decomposed body found in a drainage pipe near the home of a woman who's been missing for more than two years.

Wednesday morning, a Water Department worker found the decomposing body of a woman in a drainpipe less than 100 feet from the house where Latasha Nevitt lived with her husband and three children before she went missing in October 2011.

Latasha Nevitt, Missing Woman
Latasha Nevitt (CBS)

An autopsy had been scheduled for Thursday morning, but the Cook County Medical Examiner's office was unable to perform the procedure because the body was still frozen. The autopsy likely will have to wait until Friday at the earliest.

That will mean another day of waiting before Latasha Nevitt's family finds out if her body has been found. Her husband, Isaac, said Latasha had gone to a nearby convenience store on Oct. 15, 2011, and never returned.

"Hoping it's not her, and if it's not her still praying for the family or the person, whoever it is," he said.

While her husband was holding out hope she might still be alive, Community activist Andrew Holmes said sources told him the body appears to be that of a 30-year-old woman – the same age Latasha Nevitt was when she disappeared.

"Our sources are pointing the finger that this may be her, indeed. So we're just waiting on a positive identification, and also some of the reports from the Police Department," he said.

Isaac Nevitt said he's as shocked as anyone that a woman's body was found wrapped in plastic, and stuffed in a sewer just across the street.

"I don't think it's a coincidence, I just think it was tragic, because if it do turn out to be her, why didn't they find her then? You know, they had the dogs out here," he said.

He said neighbors suspect he was involved in his wife's disappearance, and he fears even more people will target him if the body does belong to Latasha.

"Everybody looked at me as a criminal back then, so now they're really looking at me crazy by it being on my block, so that makes it even worse," he said.

Latasha's mother, was at the scene where the body was found on Wednesday, holding out hope the remains do not belong to her daughter.

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