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Vice, Prostitution Units Investigating Massacre

Cops Say 5 Victims Were Targeted, No Need For Neighbors To Fear

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Chicago police say the deaths of five people found murdered inside a Chatham neighborhood home were targeted, and neighbors should not panic. 

Police said all the victims were beaten before being shot to death. And officers from the police prostitution, vice and narcotics units are also involved in the investigation.

Police brass called on the public to provide any information that may help solve the massacre. They added that the shootings appeared to be well-planned and that the home had been ransacked. Police said they do not know the motive, but they are talking to a number of people in the investigation.

A day after the murders, the house is still ringed in police tape as detectives try and solve the worst mass murder in Chicago since 2003. Investigators have ruled out murder-suicide and now believe more than one killer is on the loose.

"It's still early but this doesn't appear to be the work of one person," said Cmdr. Eddie Welch of the Chicago Police Department.

And police believe the killers planned their attack.

"It wasn't something that was random," Welch said. "No killer running in the neighborhood. This was an event that was targeted. They were definitely targeted."

Police say the home was ransacked. But they wouldn't say if the killers forced their way inside before shooting three men and two women to death.

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Neighbors heard the gunfire on Wednesday afternoon, from inside a house at 7607 S. Rhodes Ave. Five lifelong friends were shot dead, one a teenager and the other four in their 20s. Their bodies were all found on the first floor of the two-story brick home.

At least two of the dead -- Donovan Richardson and his cousin Reginald Walker -- lived in the house.

Richardson and another of the victims, Whitney Flowers, were reportedly dating. The couple had a 2-year-old son together, Flowers' mother, Cheryl, said.

Cheryl Flowers said her daughter was a dancer at a south suburban club. She said she thought her daughter met Richardson at school.

Flowers' mother tried just last week to get her to move out.

"I just had a few suspicions," she said. "I didn't know what was going on in the house but… it was just something about the lifestyle they were living I just didn't know."

As Cheryl Flowers spoke, Whitney's son, Khari, squirmed on her lap; Whitney wanted to raise her son herself.

"As long as she was living in the house there, I wouldn't let my grandson, I wouldn't let her come back and get him because of her living arrangements.

Williams said Richardson, 24, had dabbled in real estate as he tried to figure out a career path. By most accounts, Richardson enjoyed the good life and favored flashy jewelry.

"He was an outgoing type of guy, [who] just liked to have fun," said Richardson's brother, Jason Alfred.

Alfred said his brother had also worked as a party promoter.

Jonathan Williams had just attended a barbecue with the victims the day before they were killed.

"It just really hit me today," Williams said Thursday. "Those were my buddies those were my friends."

He believes the killers were likely after money and jewelry, and that his friend Donovan Richardson was known to have a lot of both.

"He would have gave it to them, whatever they wanted he would have gave it to them," Williams said.

"This is too crazy. It's unbelievable," he said. "These are people I'm planning my future with and they're all dead."

Reginald Walker, 23, was known to his friends as "Lil' Reg," said his mother, Michelle Walker. He was a beefy young man who played linebacker for his football team at Washington High School on the East Side. He graduated from Washington in 2000 and had been doing janitorial work for Chicago Public Schools, his mother said.

"He was not a thug," she said. "He was a respectable boy. He didn't deserve this."

Anthony Scales Jr., 27, another of the victims, was visiting buddies at the house. Scales lived downtown and worked as a computer analyst, said his father, Anthony Scales Sr.

"He was a very loving young fellow," Scales said. "He loved kids and he never got a chance to have any of his own."

The loss felt like an unbearable test to ordained minister.

"My faith is being tried… But I'm going to hang and hold on in His unchanging hand, because without Him I wouldn't be standing here. I would be going out of my mind," Rev. Scales said.

Lakesha Boss, 17, was named Thursday afternoon as the fifth victim.

The younger Scales' girlfriend, April Rutherford, told the Sun-Times that she was partying with Scales and the renter of the home, Donovan Richardson, and left shortly after midnight.

She returned about half an hour later and the doors were locked, but music was blaring.

She returned to the home Wednesday afternoon with Tony Scales' cousin, Terry Arrington, Tony Scales Sr. said.

They found a back door open and music blaring and saw the bodies inside. Rutherford said she called the police.

Friends of the young people say the victims were not involved in any kind of illegal activity.

'They're not violent at all – none of these people are violent at all – at all. Not even a little bit," Williams said.

A neighbor, Donald Crossley, was so unnerved he spent the night elsewhere, returning home only to dress for work.

"I probably won't come back here," Crossley said. "One good thing about it is I have somewhere else to stay."

But while some Chicagoans are disgusted by the rash of gun violence in Chicago, others have grown numb to it.

"Around here, it is sad to say, but it's common – not for so many people to die, but it's common for innocent people to get killed," said Patrick Pearson.

Police did not believe an offender was on the loose and the incident appeared to be isolated inside the one house, Bond said.

"We don't think that the neighbors need to worry," she said. "We believe that it's been contained inside this residence, and right now detectives are on the scene talking to neighbors and trying to get as much information as possible to follow up on leads."

 Map Of The Shootings





Wednesday afternoon's shooting comes on the heels of a particularly violent weekend in the city. Between Friday night and early Monday morning, 36 people were shot in Chicago, nine fatally, and two people were stabbed.

The beginning of the week saw continued violence. Over Monday night, four people were killed and eight more injured in seven separate incidents.

Tuesday night four people were shot; one of those victims died.

There were at least two more shootings Wednesday night. An 18-year-old man was hospitalized in a shooting suspected to be gang-related in the 2000 block of North Tripp Avenue just before 8 p.m., police said.

Just before midnight, a 20-year-old man was taken to South Shore Hospital with a gunshot wound to the left leg, which police said he suffered while washing his car in the 3000 block of East 79th Street.

CBS 2's Joanie Lum, Jay Levine and Mike Puccinelli, and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

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