College Times

CHICAGO _ A day after three of the five women fatally shot in a Tinley Park, Ill., clothing store were laid to rest, friends and community activists gathered Sunday for a vigil at the scene of last week's slayings to urge anyone with information about the killer to step forward and called it a "moral obligation" to do so.

The man who reportedly bound the women with duct tape, covered their heads and opened fire when he heard a manager of the Lane Bryant store make a 911 call remains at large.

Law enforcement officials in the Chicago suburb continue to search for an African-American man who wears his hair in corn rows with a green-beaded braid hanging by his right ear, according to a composite sketch based on a description provided by a 33-year-old woman who survived the shooting in the store's back room Feb. 2. Tinley Park police officials said they continue to comb through tips and leads pouring into their office.

The plea for public input and a nationwide search came with a call for tighter gun control laws by a Chicago father and city police officer whose 16-year-old son was fatally shot during a bus ride home from school last May.

"This offender has friends. This offender has family. ... This person must be brought to justice," said Ronald Holt, whose 16-year-old son, Blair, died when an alleged gang member boarded a city bus and opened fire on a rival. Holt has emerged as a vocal proponent against gun violence in the Chicago region.

Holt spoke during a vigil orchestrated by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who added a wreath to the make-shift memorial of wood crosses, flowers and teddy bears near the store in the Brookside Marketplace mall. Jackson seized on the Tinley Park shooting as the most recent example of gun-related violence and repeated his calls for stricter gun laws. He also said he contacted local law enforcement officials to see how he and members of his Rainbow Push Coalition might help.

"Somebody, somewhere knows where the killer is," Jackson said. "He will not stop unless he is stopped first."

Cora Gaston stood in the bruising cold during the vigil and remembered Connie Woolfolk, 37, a mortgage lender with two sons. Gaston, 58, of Park Forrest, Ill., said the two women knew one another through their families. Such ties drew Gaston to the scene of Woolfolk's killing, where the Lane Bryant store remains cordoned off, the front door covered with plywood and a police investigation truck stationed outside.

"I cannot get this out of my mind. I've thought about it every day," Gaston said.

Funerals were held for Woolfolk and two other shooting victims Saturday. Memorials for Rhoda McFarland, 42, and Sarah Szafranski, 22, also occurred, each drawing standing-room only crowds. Funerals for Carrie Hudek Chiuso, 33, and Jennifer Bishop, 34, took place earlier last week. The women _ four shoppers and a store manager _ are thought to have been strangers to one another.

Bud Flanigan, 51, of Highland, Ind., added a bouquet to the mound of flowers Sunday as shoppers slowed their cars to look at the memorial. Flanigan and his wife came to the shopping center to run an errand. They did not realize until arriving that the slayings had occurred in the quiet suburban mall.

"Everybody comes to work every day, and you don't know what's going to happen," Flanigan said. "It's hitting home."

Article Tools