5 shot dead at suburban Chicago store

vinnie

la vita ? buona
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Sep 11, 2000
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TINLEY PARK, Ill. - Five women were shot to death at a suburban Chicago clothing store on Saturday, and police were searching for a man they said fled the scene

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The victims were shot and killed at a Lane Bryant store at the Brookside Marketplace, police Sgt. T.J. Grady said. Officers found the victims inside after getting a 911 call around 10:45 a.m., Grady said.

Earlier, Grady said "the offender" had apparently left the cluster of stores off Interstate 80 in the suburbs southwest of downtown Chicago.

"No motive has been established," Grady said. "Every store was immediately canvassed and a search by air too has given us every indication that the offender has left the scene."

The store was open at the time of the shootings. Grady declined to say whether the victims were customers or employees. He gave no ages and said authorities are still trying to reach the victims' families.

Police were allowing some shoppers into parts of the strip mall later Saturday, but had cordoned off the store.

Tracy Caccavella was shopping at a Pet Smart store late Saturday morning across the parking lot from the Lane Bryant when she saw police enter the pet supply store.

"Six police entered the store with their hands on their gun holsters," Caccavella said.

The Cook County Sheriff's Department was helping with the investigation, providing a helicopter and K-9 patrol unit Saturday, spokeswoman Penny Mateck said.

The small red and brown brick Lane Bryant is part of a cluster of four or five stores isolated on one side of a large blacktop parking lot, with big box stores including Target and a Best Buy several hundred yards away.

Two large county vans backed up to the front of the building Saturday afternoon and a white canopy was placed over the front of the building.

Messages left at Lane Bryant Brand headquarters were not immediately returned.
 

NIEM36

Child Please
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Feb 6, 2002
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About 10 minutes from my house. This type of stuff does not happen around here, and alot of people are shaken up about it. Two days later no suspects and no arrests.
 

yyz

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Mar 16, 2000
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Police said the killer is still at large........When he was at Lane Bryant, he was at "extra large".....
 

IntenseOperator

DeweyOxburger
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Sep 16, 2003
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they still don't have anybody

they still don't have anybody

The killing started when he found out she was on the phone. Nasty nasty stuff.



The 911 call

The voice is hushed, but crisp and clear.

"I'm in Lane Bryant. . . . Hurry.''

Those were apparently among Lane Bryant store manager Rhoda McFarland's last words Feb. 2 as she urged a 911 dispatcher to send help to her Tinley Park store, a portion of the 911 call indicated Monday.

The 911 audio was released for the first time Saturday on TV's "America's Most Wanted," along with footage from the third police car to arrive at the scene where McFarland and four other women were found shot to death, execution style, and a sixth woman was discovered shot in the neck, but alive.

Tinley Park Police Cmdr. Rick Bruno said Monday about 50 tips poured in after the "America's Most Wanted" segment.

Even so, Bruno joined a group of nine south suburban pastors Monday in urging citizens with information about the killer to call police at (708) 444-5394.

The sole survivor, now in protective custody, has helped police create a detailed sketch of the gunman -- a somewhat husky 25- to 35-year-old black man who wore a braid adorned with green beads on the right side of his face.

"If you're holding someone who committed this crime -- this young man -- then you are just as guilty as he is,'' said Apostle Ron Wilson of Full Gospel Christian Assembly International in Hazel Crest.

Bruno said gunfire broke out "within minutes'' of the portion of 911 tape now available on the Chicago Sun-Times Web site, courtesy of "America's Most Wanted."

During the call, McFarland, a minister from Joliet, whispers on her cell phone but manages to carefully enunciate her words as she tells a dispatcher she is in a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park.

"Hurry. . . . I won't hang up,'' McFarland says just before the dispatcher transfers her to the Tinley Park Police Department.

The audio ends with three beeps -- apparently the sound of the call being transferred, but the entire tape was not released.

A police source previously told the Sun-Times that the killer heard the dispatcher's voice, and as McFarland "tried to close the phone . . . he shoots her. . . . then he shoots the rest of them.''

The entire shooting, Bruno said Monday, took less than a minute.

The gunman entered the store posing as a deliveryman, took about $200 from the cash register, and grabbed more cash from the victims' purses, Bruno said.

"While he remains at large, he is a risk to other innocent lives, especially to those who know who he is,'' Bruno said at Monday's news conference. "We know this desperate killer will not hesitate to kill again.''
 
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