The funerals of the last three victims of a massacre at a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park, a suburb of Chicago, took place today, and police have finally made a sketch of the suspect in the murders of the five women. A sixth victim is still in protective custody by the police after being shot in the neck, but surviving.
Police were canvassing the Brookside Marketplace in hopes of finding someone "who may have seen something that may aid in this investigation," said Tinley Park Police Cmdr. Rick Bruno. Five women -- Connie Woolfolk, Jennifer Bishop, Sarah Szafranski, Carrie Hudek Chiuso and store manager Rhoda McFarland -- were slain. A sixth woman, 33, survived a gunshot wound in the neck. The gunman walked into the Lane Bryant store near 191st Street and Harlem Avenue after 10 a.m. Saturday.
The funeral for McFarland began at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Word of Life Christian Center in Crest Hill. More than 600 people attended the funeral, which had a celebratory tone as friends and family remembered McFarland's strong faith.
"A precious person has been removed from our lives in a mysterious, unexpected, violent and horrible way," Rev. Tim Bagwell said during his eulogy. "At a moment like this, we would not be human if we didn't ask why."The funeral for Szafranski, 22, a recent college graduate, began at 10 a.m. at St. Damien Church in Oak Forest. Woolfolk, 37, a mortgage lender with two sons, will be honored at her funeral at 4 p.m. at Leak and Sons Funeral Home in Country Club Hills.
Funerals for the other two victims took place earlier this week. Over the past two days, dive teams have searched frozen ponds and streams in the area for evidence while police have conducted "grid searches" of roadsides and interstates and received more than 200 phone calls on a tips hotline, said Bruno. Authorities have described the gunman as a black man, 25 to 35 years old, clean shaven with his hair arranged in three to five thick, puffy corn rows. A single braid, sporting light-green beads, hung down the right side of his face. He is large-framed, with his weight proportionate to his height, and was last seen wearing black jeans with rhinestones on the back pocket, a dark jacket and a gray knit cap.
One theory states that the gunman went into the Lane Bryant store specifically because it was a women's store and because he did not want to target men. According to the surviving victim, the gunman made a sexual advance to, then fondled one of the women that he killed before shoothig all of them, and blended in with the "crowd." police, earlier this week, asked other departments if there were any other robberies of women's stores involving fondling of victims.
Lane Bryant has offered a $50,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the gunman, and Cook County Crime Stoppers offered $5,000 for the arrest of a suspect in the case. Anyone with information about the case should call 708-444-5394.
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