A Chicago-area man fatally shot his girlfriend and her cousin and wounded his infant son before fleeing the scene and turning the gun on himself, police and members of the victims’ family said.
The tragedy occurred Tuesday night in Cicero, Illinois, about 15 minutes from downtown Chicago.
Local police responded to reports of gunshots at around 7:45 p.m., finding two women badly injured in a home on the 1800 block of South 48 Court, ABC7 reported.
A man who was later found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Cicero park shot and killed his girlfriend and her cousin and wounded his infant son Tuesday night, the victims' family members say. https://t.co/SX5Bm3xCZc
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) January 3, 2024
Those two victims, later identified as Jessica Hughes, 29, and Myeshia Newby, 19, died after being rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital.
The family of the two women, who were cousins, said that Newby’s boyfriend shot her before shooting Hughes as she was attempting to escape with Newby’s infant son, Arturo, whom Newby shared with the alleged shooter.
The gunfire grazed the baby, but he is stable and recovering at Comer Children’s Hospital after undergoing surgery.
According to relatives of the victims, the couple was apparently arguing over a “Link” card — otherwise known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
“It went from one thing to the next. There was never any loud hollering or anything,” Hughes’ father, Mitchell Benton, told ABC7.
The heartbroken dad recounted the moment he heard Newby arguing with her boyfriend of two years in the basement of the home.
“He come back down and said, ‘Here, look at my wallet.’ She said, ‘You done went up there and took it out.’ So, she said, ‘Well, ain’t no point in me looking in it then.’ And the next thing I know, I’m hearing shot,” he explained.
Benton said that Hughes was trying to protect Arturo when she was shot.
“My daughter dropped at my feet. She had the baby in her hand. She had been shot in the face and in the chest,” he said, adding that he fought the alleged shooter, but he managed to get away.
With help from the grieving family, Cicero police were able to locate 21-year-old Rafael Vega, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot in a park near 16th Street and Central Avenue early Wednesday morning.
Officials named Vega as the suspected shooter at a press conference later that evening.
“Preliminarily, the subject in the park does appear to be the subject we were seeking,” said Cicero Police Superintendent Thomas Boyle.
“It’s devastating for the whole family,” Hughes’ mother, Michelle Musgray, said. “They were loving, both of them, loving moms, good souls, good people, loved their kids. Their kids were their world.”
Newby would have turned 20 on Thursday.
“There’s no celebration. You can’t celebrate life. There is no life,” Benton said.
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