Mar 24, 2008 10:14 pm US/Central
Elderly Woman Fatally Shot In Her South Side Home
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Chicago police say Maggie Browder, 70, was fatally shot at her home in the West Pullman neighborhood Monday morning.
CBS
A Chicago grandmother was gunned down early Monday inside her own home in the West Pullman neighborhood on the city's Far South Side.
CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports police say 70-year-old Maggie Browder was not the target the gunman intended to hit. She was murdered early this morning in her home on South Morgan Street.
"My momma was 70 years old. She didn't ask for this," said the victim's daughter, Barbara Golden.
When the doorbell rang at 6:00 a.m. Monday, police say Browder looked out the window. As she pressed her head against the pane, she was shot twice in the head and chest.
"I heard the shots and I seen her on the floor," Golden said. "I called the police. I ran back to her to see if I could hold her and she was dead."
She was pronounced dead about an hour later at Advocate Christ Medical Center.
The killer took the life of a mother of three, and a grandmother of six, who was legally blind.
"It's just senseless," said Browder's pastor, the Rev. Marshall Robinson. "Six in the morning, it had to be something targeted. It wasn't like they were just shooting at random. We just can't figure it out."
Police have a theory. They don't believe Browder was the intended target, but they suspect that someone who lives in the house or is connected to the family may have been the target of a drug or gang related dispute.
But those living in the neighborhood think it's also possible the killer thought Browder saw something she shouldn't have while looking out her window.
The idea that that could have cost Browder her life angers them.
"If you thought she seen something, she didn't see anything. She didn't see nothing," said family member Lakisha Mack.
To family members there's no question the shooter got the wrong person.
"She was there when my father, when my father was there. She was an auntie, she was a mother," said Browder's niece Geneva Mack. "I'm going to miss her so much, I'm going to miss her so much."
"She was a beautiful person," said friend Jimmie Byrd. Anytime something happened, she would always go around and take money and she was very supportive."
"It was terrifying," said neighbor Catherine Grimes.
She said it's not the first time gunfire has disturbed the peace in their neighborhood, but the difference this time is a life was lost.
Loved ones and neighbors mourn her passing. They also regret what's happening in the neighborhood they call home.
Longtime West Pullman resident Willie Harvey said, "I've been here for so long, but you never know. … Like I said, the neighborhood done changed so I just stay in the house."
"They took my everything," Golden said. "That's all I had. That's all I had was my mother."
Browder's family is pleading with the killer or killers to come forward.
CrimeStoppers is also offering a reward up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest in the case.
CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker , Mai Martinez and Kristyn Hartman, and the STNG Wire, contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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