Families grieve for two slain men found in Camaro in Englewood

Sun-Times Media Wire — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:07:38 -0500

Antwone Price liked expensive toys, and he wasn’t shy about showing off the fruits of his success as a hip-hop concert promoter.

But mostly, Price — a Daley Center clerk by day — was a family man, his fiancée, Kiara Robinson, said Thursday, a day after Price’s body was found stuffed in the trunk of his car in the 7100 block of South Oakley. His friend, Trevin Hullum, was found dead in the back seat.

Robinson -- with her engagement ring glittering in the sunlight -- sobbed as she talked about her frantic search for Price after he failed to return to their south suburban home from a late-night meeting with a business associate Wednesday morning.

"Antwone told me his every move," explained the woman with whom Price shared a 17-month-old daughter.

But Robinson said she never heard back from Price — who had promoted concerts by rappers T.I., Gucci Mane and Chief Keef — after he went out to pick up $5,000 he’d lent to a business partner, a debt Robinson said he’d been trying to collect for some time.

Robinson called Price’s cellphone but got no answer. She tried filing a police report but was told Price hadn’t been missing long enough. She called OnStar, the satellite service Price had for his 2010 Chevrolet Camaro. The OnStar operator couldn’t reach Price in his car. Robinson drove around for hours, looking to places she thought her fiancé might have gone.

Finally, she went to the police station at 51st and Wentworth, where Robinson broke down and said she fibbed to say the car had been stolen.

This time, when police called OnStar, she could overhear the operator provide the car’s location, and she beat police to the spot, where she saw Hullum’s body in the back seat.

By the time police arrived and opened the trunk, “I already knew [Price] was gone. I had a gut feeling.”

Price, 33, of the 3300 block of West 157th Place in Markham, was pronounced dead on the scene at 5:41 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

Hullum, 22, of the 1500 block of West 63rd Street in Chicago, was pronounced dead at the scene minutes before at 5:34 p.m., the medical examiner’s office said.

An autopsy was conducted on Thursday to determine how the two men died, but the medical examiner’s officer has not yet released the results as of Friday morning.

Myrtis Price, Antwone Price’s grandmother and the woman who raised him, said she also knew that her grandson had gone to retrieve the $5,000 debt. But some time early Wednesday, she got a disturbing call from someone demanding a ransom in exchange for her grandson, she said.

"They said they had my grandson and they wanted $5,000," Price said.

"If I didn’t give them the $5,000, they would kill him."

Myrtis Price said she told the kidnapper she had no way of coming up with the money.

She said she knew her grandson had “enemies,” and at one point, her grandson told her cryptically, “If I don’t do what they want me to do, they will kill you, Grandma.”

But her grandson never named the enemies. Nor did he say why, specifically, anyone would want to hurt the Price family, she said.

Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown said Price "was a dedicated and kind employee who was very well liked by his colleagues."

No one had been arrested in the case Thursday.

Meanwhile, Hullum’s girlfriend LaShonta Charles said she has lost her “rock.”

“He was a very good dad,” said Charles, who shared a daughter with Hullum. “He was all I had. He made it his business to make sure we were okay.”

Man found dead in trunk feared for family’s safety, grandmother says

Sun-Times Media Wire — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:42:27 -0500

Antwone Price had just moved into a new house in the south suburbs, and he was talking about finally marrying the woman he’d been with for several years — the woman with whom he shared a baby girl.

But Price, a clerk at the Daley Center, had nagging worries — that someone might try to hurt his family, Price’s grandmother told the Chicago Sun-Times Thursday, a day after Price and another man were found dead and tied up in a car on the South Side. Investigators found Price, 30, in the trunk, while the other man was found in the back seat, a source said.

“He would call me twice a day (from) work,” said Myrtis Price, the grandmother and the woman who raised Antwone Price. “If I didn’t answer the phone, he would panic because he thought someone had done something to me.”

Myrtis Price — who lost her son, Antwone Price’s father, to gun violence more than a decade ago — said she knew the other man found in the car in the 7100 block of South Oakley only by his nickname. She said he was one of her grandson’s friends.

Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday morning, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, which has not officially identified either man.

Officers conducting a well-being check in the 7100 block of South Oakley made the gruesome discovery, finding the two men in a Chevrolet Camaro about 3:20 p.m. Wednesday, police said. At least one of the men had his hands bound, authorities said. Myrtis Price said the car belonged to her grandson.

A cause of death has yet to be determined, due partly to the location of the bodies in the car and the amount of blood that was discovered, authorities said. The men possibly had been shot, authorities said.

Myrtis Price said she’s been shown a picture of her grandson bound and beaten.

“I didn’t see his face,” Price said. “All I saw was the shoulders down to the legs. He didn’t have nothing but his underclothes.”

Price said she knew her son had “enemies,” and at one point, her grandson told her cryptically, “If I don’t do what they want me to do, they will kill you, Grandma,” she said.

But her grandson never named the enemies. Nor did he say why, specifically, anyone would want to hurt the Price family, she said.

In addition to his work at the Daley Center, Price also had a side career promoting rap music shows, which sometimes required him to travel out of town, the grandmother said.

“He was a working man — he worked seven days a week,” Myrtis Price said.

Price said she’d recently asked her grandson why he was waiting to get married.

“He said he wanted to have a nice wedding,” Price said.

Price said her grandson was raised in the city, attended Leo Catholic High School and earned a degree in criminal justice from Quincy University in Quincy, Ill.

Antwone Price | Homicide Watch Chicago

Families grieve for two slain men found in Camaro in Englewood

Man found dead in trunk feared for family’s safety, grandmother says