An ABC affiliate claims to have confirmed the blue barrel story, and actually photographed the barrel.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6823493&rss=rss-wls-article-6823493
Yet this story says there was no barrel:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-body-search-21may21,0,1221131.story
At the same time supposedly news reports showed a deteriorated barrel.