Mike Hudek still longs for the 12:15 p.m. daily phone call with his sister. The short check-in at lunch was a time to recount the day’s events with his best friend, get advice and indulge in a mutual love of celebrity gossip.
Mike Hudek still longs for the 12:15 p.m. daily phone call with his sister. The short check-in at lunch was a time to recount the day’s events with his best friend, get advice and indulge in a mutual love of celebrity gossip. For the past year, Hudek has grappled with the sudden loss of his older sister, Carrie Chiuso. She was one of five women killed by a gunman in a Lane Bryant clothing store during a botched robbery on Feb. 2, 2008. The lone gunman remains at large, even though investigators have spent 30,000 hours combing through 5,600 tips and have worked closely with the sole survivor — whose identity police have kept secret. The killings rocked this quiet Chicago suburb, and the atmosphere on Monday’s one-year anniversary was "eerie," said Mayor Edward Zabrocki. "This one incident has changed the lives of literally hundreds of people," Zabrocki said by telephone. "You remember it. Your heart goes out to the family and friends of the victims." Religious leaders and city officials organized a community memorial service for Monday afternoon. Every morning for the past year, 12 investigators whose sole task is solving the crime have gathered in the "War Room" at the Tinley Park Police Department. Plastered to the walls are aerial maps of the shopping complex, enhanced digital photographs of the store and binders upon binders of paper. Taped in one corner are photographs of the victims: Chiuso of Frankfort, Rhoda McFarland, 42, of Joliet; Connie R. Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor; Sarah T. Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; and Jennifer L. Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Ind. "I come in every morning, and I start my day by looking at the pictures of the victims. It gives you a renewed sense of cause," said Cmdr. Patrick McCain, a 21-year department veteran overseeing the investigation. "We don’t discount anything. Nothing is trivial." Their investigation has led them from hair salons on Chicago’s South Side — the gunman’s hair was braided — to nearby states for possible leads and even south to Texas to trace a victim’s ties to a church. A police sketch of the gunman has been displayed on electronic billboards in the Chicago area and there’s a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Authorities say here’s what happened during that harrowing hour on a chilly Saturday: Shortly after 10 a.m., a stocky man walked into the store wearing a black winter coat and black jeans with rhinestones. He acted like he was making a delivery. He announced a holdup and forced four of the women into a back room, where they were bound with duct tape and placed face down on the floor. Two more women walked into the store and were bound along with the others, police said. Store manager Rhoda McFarland was able to get free and called 911 from her cell phone. Her final one-word plea to dispatchers was: "Hurry." The women were shot execution-style. Officials believe the gunman did not have any ties to the victims. That thought troubles Sandra McGee, the best friend of McFarland. "He’s still out there, that’s not fair. His conscious should be seared. He should be disturbed, he shouldn’t be able to sleep," she said. "Somebody has to have a conscious out there. They know something, they’ve heard something." McFarland was an ordained minister who has been called a hero because even though she got free she chose to stay in the store and help the other women. That’s a thought that comforts her brother Maurice Hamilton, who now refers to her as "his angel." He visits her grave weekly. Last month there was a small observance there on what would have been McFarland’s 43rd birthday. "She could have saved herself, but she tried to save other people and put herself last," he said. "That was her every day lifestyle." The plus-size clothing store was in the middle of the community’s main shopping center in the city of nearly 60,000 people. The inside of the store is virtually untouched since the day of the shootings because it’s still an active crime scene. The Lane Bryant sign has been removed and the windows are covered with black material. It is unknown what will happen with the space. Gayle Coolick, a spokeswoman for Charming Shoppes Inc. which owns Lane Bryant, said the company still has a lease on the building but is unsure if it will reopen. Each day, a local pastor drags a 10-foot wooden cross in front of the site to honor the victims. He says he would no longer do so after Monday. For Hudek, this time of year is bittersweet. Just 12 hours after his sister died, his daughter was born. They named her Carrie. "At one point, you have every range of emotion," said Hudek, who is working with lawmakers to require surveillance cameras and other security measures at stores like Lane Bryant. "You don’t make sense of it. It’s such a senseless thing." ______ Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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