Nineteen-year-old Northern Illinois University student Joseph Graves was fatally shot Friday night in the Washington Heights neighborhood on the South Side.
Joseph Graves
About 10:30 p.m., the 19-year-old Graves was found unresponsive inside a car with a gunshot wound to the back of the head in the 700 block of West 92nd Street, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Graves, who lived in the 8400 block of South Green, was dead at the scene, authorities said.
He was a sophomore business major at NIU who graduated from Simeon Career Academy and was home on break when he was shot.
“He was a great student,” said Dr. Sheldon House, principal of Simeon. “He was a member of the bowling team. He was just a great kid.”
House said Graves has a younger brother who currently attends Simeon.
“The news hurt because I see his brother every day and those two were jokesters. It hurts to hear the violence in the city and it hurts even more when it happens to a great person who is doing his best who is home from college just for a breather,” House said.
House said he spoke with Graves’ mother shortly after her son’s death.
“She told me she would be strong and she would pray.”
A reward fund for information on the shooting has risen to more than $5,000.
—Chicago Sun-Times Wire and Chicago Sun-Times