Report Details All 506 Chicago Murders From 2012
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A new report aims to put faces and names to the number of murders that Chicago saw last year.
WBBM Newsradio's Nancy Harty reports 506 people were shot, stabbed, strangled, or beaten to death in Chicago last year.
Report Maps, Details Chicago Murders
Called "Murder In Chicago: The Human Toll," the exhaustive project by the hyperlocal news site DNAInfoChicago.com took a dozen staffers several months to compile, according to managing editor Shamus Toomey.
"A lot of these people, their murders sort of came and went. Last year, there were just so many of them," Toomey said.
In addition to a timeline and map of all 506 homicides, Toomey said the projects includes pictures and details, when available.
"A little bit, in some cases, about who these people are, what they loved, what they did," he said. "A little bit of the humanity behind the numbers."
Among the victims were Ancelmo Solis – a 51-year-old ice cream vendor who was beaten to death in July in North Lawndale – and 13-year-old Tyquan Tyler, who had moved to East Moline, only to be shot and killed while leaving a party in Woodlawn in June, when he came back to visit.
Thirty-year-old Soraya Gibson was shot and killed on Jan. 7, 2012, as she and her family were moving out of their Englewood home. Seventy-six-year-old Frank Baity's twin sister said she still listens to his voice mail messages well after he died from a March beating in the Grand Boulevard neighborhood.
Toomey called such stories heartbreaking.
"No matter what brought this person to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, there were people left behind that had nothing to do with the circumstances," he said.
