Mother Of Three Gunned Down On South Side
CHICAGO (CBS) - Chicago Police are trying to solve a perplexing murder mystery after a mother of three was shot to death Saturday night as she was behind the wheel of her car. It happened on a quiet block of the West Chatham neighborhood and at the moment, investigators have no suspects.
CBS 2's Mike Parker reports the victim has been identified as 40-year-old Erika Greene, the mother of three grown children.
It appears she was pulling her sport-utility vehicle away from the curb in front of her apartment at 80th and Princeton when an assailant opened fire and riddled the vehicle with bullets.
Greene's vehicle was reportedly shot six times and that she was fatally wounded while speeding away to escape more gunfire. The out of control car then slammed into a parked car causing both vehicles to end up over the curb and sitting in a front yard about 300 feet down the block.
Neighbor Centuria Shelton could not help but overhear the intense commotion, "It was like six or seven shots. I just hit the floor."
Another neighbor, who identified himself as Ako Franklin, said he walked up to the woman's car as she was dying behind the wheel, "I asked her if she was okay and she didn't respond."
"That being a mother and a woman, it just takes your breath away. Six times? I mean that's rage, that's hate," Franklin added.
The victim had worked for five years as a switchboard operator at the Drake Hotel and had two sons who live in Arizona.
Caprice Johns is her third child and lives with her mother in Chicago, "I don't know who could have hurt her, she don't do nothing to nobody. So I can't really say who did it and why but they did it to the wrong person."
Homicide detectives combed the area for clues Sunday and at one point retrieved surveillance video from an apartment building nearby. When asked if it might aid in the investigation, a detective answered, "To be determined."
