Boating community honors Captain Bill with vigil after death at DuSable Harbor: ‘Died protecting us’

CHICAGO (WLS) — Loved ones gather Saturday to remember a beloved boater whose body was pulled from DuSable Harbor last weekend.

Chicago police are investigating his death as a homicide.

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A picture of Plainfield man Nabil Abzal, affectionately known as Captain Bill, smiling is what greeted his former boating community who gathered, mourning his death. His friends say he was attacked.

“Unauthorized people, he was trying to escort them off and he never made it back to his boat,” said Alan Brandt Malelo, vigil organizer and friend. “He would cock his hat and smile with his pursed lips.”

The cheerful face memorialized in a picture is how his fellow boaters want to remember the man who loved the very harbor where police said he was murdered.

“It’s a very close-knit community, so we all kind of reached out to one another,” said Frank Jaeger a fellow captain and friend. “It’s unfortunate to hear the news that it was him.”

Flowers, a balloon, and a picture of Abzal adorned an entrance at DuSable Harbor, where just a few feet away on the C dock, mourners gathered for a private vigil to remember the late 63-year-old man before throwing petals into the part of the marina where his body was pulled from last weekend.

“It’s tough to swallow. There are people like Captain Bill out there who are dying because they slept on their boat for the night, and that should not be happening,” Brandt Malelo said. “They got in his boat. They were having a party at 2:45 in the morning, vaping, drinking, whatever; doing what party-goers do, and he woke up.”

While the circumstances surrounding the Plainfield man’s death remain murky, police are ruling it a homicide. Brandt Malelo says his years-long friend and boat neighbor may have been attacked by a group.

“And, he took it upon himself to go to the end of the dock here, and there was a violent act at the end of the dock here and he was thrown in the water, and he never made it back,” Brandt Malelo said. “It’s a tragedy. It’s a modern-day tragedy, and he died protecting us.”

Police have not confirmed what might have led up to the alleged murder, but the owner of a nearby restaurant told ABC7 that they have given police surveillance footage as part of the homicide investigation.

So far, Chicago police say no one has been arrested.

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