Jamarh Carter died Tuesday morning, about eight hours after he was shot the previous night in the Gresham neighborhood, authorities said.
Carter, 22, was sitting in a vehicle with another person at 8:55 p.m. Monday in the 8000 block of South May when a gunman got into the back seat and shot him in the back of the head, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The shooter then tried to drive away in the vehicle, but the other person inside pulled him out and drove Carter to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, police said.
However, the witness was being uncooperative with investigators, police said.
Carter, who lived in the 13000 block of South King Drive, was transferred to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:17 a.m. Tuesday, according to the medical examiner’s office.
After Terrance Meredith shot his fiancee Othijah Mooney in front of their 10-year-old daughter, he tried to persuade the girl that her mother was just “playing,” Cook County prosecutors said.
But then the victim, who had fallen onto the bed, started making gagging noises.
So this time, the 43-year-old Meredith allegedly told his daughter something else: That he’d have to kill her, too, since she was a witness.
The girl convinced Meredith she was on “his side” and he eventually ordered her to go to bed at their Roseland home.
But once Meredith closed the door to his bedroom, the girl ran out and went to her aunt’s house to tell her what had happened, Assistant State’s Attorney Erika Gilliam-Booker said at Meredith’s bond hearing Tuesday.
The fight early Monday between Meredith and the 35-year-old Mooney grew so tense, at one point she told the 10-year-old that she was going to go somewhere and wanted the girl to know she loved her and her siblings, Gilliam-Booker said. Read more
By JEFFMAYES
Chicago Sun-Times Wire
While it did not become official until Wednesday morning, this August has been the deadliest month in Chicago in nearly 20 years. En route to reaching that 80th homicide of the month this week, at least 22 people were homicide victims last week, including three girls 7 and younger killed when someone set fire to the apartment building they lived in on the South Side.
Not since October of 1997 had there been so much violence in a single month. It is just another grim milestone in a year that is rapidly approaching the 500-homicide mark, which meaning CHicago will likely top its total for all of last year in just over eight months.
The deaths of three girls and man after a South Chicago neighborhood apartment building fire were ruled homicides by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The blaze was first reported at 1:36 a.m. Tuesday in the three-story, courtyard apartment building in the 8100 block of South Essex, according to the Chicago Fire Department. It was upgraded to a three-alarm fire by 1:53 a.m.
A 3-month-old girl who lived in the building, Melanie Watson, was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 2:40 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy showed she died from injuries from a fall from height, and carbon monoxide toxicity.
The other two girls — Madison Watson, 4, and Shaniya Staples, 7 — and 56-year-old Kirk Johnson, were found dead inside the building after the fire was extinguished. Autopsies ruled they died of thermal injuries and carbon monoxide toxicity.
On Thursday, police said they released a “person of interest” who had been questioned in connection with the fire. No charges have yet been filed.
The week’s final homicide was a 20-year-old man shot to death Sunday afternoon in Austin. About 4:20 p.m., Terrence Murphy was on a sidewalk near his home in the 5400 block of West Jackson when someone walked up and shot him in the abdomen, according to police and the medical examiner’s office. Murphy was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died minutes later.
An Army veteran was ordered held without bond Tuesday for allegedly shooting William Charles Smith to death during a robbery attempt in the South Loop over the weekend.
Police were able to track 56-year-old Robert Burgess from watching surveillance video of him holding a semi-automatic gun and fleeing in a dark-colored Hyundai, while wearing a Devin Hester Bears jersey, blue shorts and white gym shoes, Cook County prosecutors said.
Burgess first saw Smith walking in the 1800 block of South Michigan on Sunday morning, Assistant State’s Attorney Elena Gottreich said. After observing that Smith, 45, was alone, Burgess drove up, pointed a .45-caliber gun at Smith and demanded money, Gottreich said.
The pair got into an “altercation” during which Burgess shot Smith in the head, Gottreich said.
Smith had just left his residence, in the the 1900 block of South Indiana, to go get coffee when he was shot, prosecutors said.
Burgess fled, but investigators saw him and his license plate in the surveillance footage. Once police tracked down the Hyundai outside a South Side building, they looked inside and found the weapon, Gottreich said. Read more
A man who turned himself in for killing Ralph McNeal and seriously injuring another man when he fired a gun toward his estranged wife’s boyfriend near a crowd of people in 2013 has been sentenced to 130 years in prison.
Lamont Grant, 37, was previously convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder for the shooting that killed the 54-year-old McNeal, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
Cook County Judge Thaddeus Wilson handed down the 130-year prison sentence during a hearing Tuesday, the state’s attorney’s office announced.
The shooting happened about 6:15 p.m. Aug. 10, 2013, outside the Dearborn Homes public housing complex in the 2900 block of South State, authorities said.
Grant had gone to the building to confront his wife for having an affair with a 25-year-old man, prosecutors said. He stood on the sidewalk in front of the building, repeatedly calling out to his wife, demanding to see her and arguing with her boyfriend. Read more
Paramedics attend to a man who was shot in the Pilsen neighborhood early Wednesday morning near Throop and 18th Place. | Matthew Hendrickson/Sun-Times
Dozens of residents gathered outside their homes early Wednesday, watching Chicago Police investigate a shooting that left Armani Fierro dead and another man wounded in the Pilsen neighborhood.
The men were standing on the street at 12:49 a.m. near the corner of 18th Place and Throop Street when a Chevrolet Tahoe pulled up and someone inside opened fire, according to police.
Fierro, 20, was shot in the back and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:10 a.m., police and the Cook County medical examiner’ office said. He lived just over a block away in the 1800 block of South Racine.
The younger man was also shot in the back, and was taken to Stroger, where he was listed in serious condition, police said.
After the shooting, a crowd gathered on the street and saw the man lying on the ground on 18th Place. He moaned softly and his leg shook as paramedics began treating him at the scene. He was rolled onto a spinal board and lifted to a waiting gurney. Read more
Elijah Sims, who was to celebrate his 17th birthday on Wednesday, died Tuesday morning after being shot while visiting his old AUstin neighborhood on Monday.
Chicago Police investigate in the 5500 block of West Quincy, where where a teenage boy was killed and another wounded Monday night. | NVP News
The 16-year-old boy was killed and another 15-year-old boy wounded in the shooting Monday night, according to Chicago Police.
The boys were standing outside at 10:11 p.m. in the 5500 block of West Quincy when they heard gunfire and realized they’d been shot, police said. Both were taken to Stroger Hospital.
Sims, who was shot in the head, was pronounced dead at Stroger at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was a senior at Oak Park River Forest High School.
The younger boy was shot in the back, and his condition was stabilized, police said.
Oak Park River Forest High principal Nathaniel Rouse sent a letter to parents and students Tuesday: “It is with a heavy heart that I write this message to you,” the letter read. “We have been made aware of a shooting that took place last evening involving one of our students. We have now confirmed that the student involved in the shooting has passed away.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family with funeral expenses.
A vigil is planned in Sims’ memory at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Scoville Park at 800 W. Lake St. in Oak Park.
—Chicago Sun-Times Wire
The death of 45-year-old Kristopher Weiss in the Bridgeport neighborhood last month has been ruled a homicide.
Emergency crews responded to a person down in the 3000 block of South Normal at 11:46 p.m. July 22 and found Weiss, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
He had been involved in an altercation with two other men, authorities said. One of the men punched him in the face, causing him to fall backward and strike his head.
The two men then took off in a black pickup, police said.
Weiss, who lived about a block away in the 2900 block of South Normal, was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:38 p.m. July 24, according to the medical examiner’s office. Read more
William C. Smith was found dead in a South Loop alley Sunday morning, and a South Side man has been charged with his murder.
Robert Burgess | Chicago Police
Smith, 45, was found at 10:04 a.m. in an alley in the 1800 block of South Michigan with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Smith, of the 1900 block of South Indiana, was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:19 a.m.
A witness told investigators they had heard an argument and then a single shot, police said.
Robert Burgess, 56, has been charged with first-degree murder for the shooting, police announced Tuesday.
Burgess, who lives in the 6200 block of South Kimbark, was arrested at 10:20 p.m. Sunday in the 5100 block of South Wentworth after he was identified as the shooter, police said.
A man has been charged with shooting Othijah “Otha” Mooney to death during a domestic dispute early Monday in her home in the Roseland neighborhood.
Terrance Meredith, 43, faces one count of first-degree murder, according to Chicago Police.
Officers responding about 12:30 a.m. to a call of a person shot at a home in the 100 block of West 112th Place found the 35-year-old Mooney with a fatal gunshot wound, authorities said.
Mooney, who lived in the home, was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:55 a.m., the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy Monday determined she died of a gunshot wound to the chest and her death was ruled a homicide.
Othijah ‘Otha’ Mooney | Facebook
Meredith, who also lives on the same block, was taken into custody after he was identified as the shooter and a weapon was recovered at the scene, police said. He was scheduled to appear in bond court Tuesday.
Police said the incident was domestic-related, but did not provide additional details.
—Chicago Sun-Times Wire
What is Homicide Watch Chicago?
Homicide Watch Chicago is dedicated to the proposition that murder is never a run-of-the-mill story. Attention must be paid to each one, not merely a select and particularly tragic few. We understand the reality of the public’s demand for news - that some stories get more attention than others. But all murders represent a degree of human suffering - direct and indirect - that cannot be ignored. Read more…
