Chicago woman, 27, and father, 79, shot dead inside apartment, 2-year-old boy found unharmed
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: A toddler was found along with two dead bodies inside an East Chatham apartment on the city's Far South Side on Wednesday, December 7, causing police to launch an immediate investigation.
CPD Deputy Chief Senora Ben said during a news conference that police were called to an apartment for a welfare check where they found the 27-year-old woman and the 79-year-old man both dead inside the residence. A 2-year-old child was found unharmed. The victims were identified as Javonni Jenkins and her father, Curtis Hardman, by family and friends. According to investigators, Jenkins and Hardman both suffered deadly gunshot wounds and the toddler was taken to Comer Children's Hospital to be kept under observation.
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Jenkins, who worked as a medical aide at Holy Cross Hospital, did not show up for work on ---. When her co-workers tried calling her, Jenkins' 2-year-old son, CJ, picked up the phone, according to what they told Abc7. "No one was answering so finally the baby answered. We tried calling again through FaceTime to see if he answered, and he answered," said Viviana, one of Jenkins' co-workers. The colleagues had the toddler on FaceTime for several hours. "All we could see was from his face up, so the ceiling the majority of the time. He was kind of just walking around, and they didn't hear any adult in the background," said another colleague.
"The whole time I had the baby on the phone, he was very content, playing with his toys," said Nicole Worth, another co-worker of Jenkins. "Once I had that baby on the phone and after a certain amount of time of no parents calling the baby, you don't hear that - there's something wrong." Her coworkers reportedly grew concerned and called the police to do a welfare check. That's when police discovered the mother and grandfather dead.
"That girl had a heart of gold," Worth told CBS. "She wore her heart on her sleeve. She had a smile that would light up a room. You never saw her down. You knew when something bothered her, but she didn't speak much of it, but she'd just brush it away."
Germaine Owens, a cousin, said that Jenkins was raised alone by her father. "Curtis - a loving father," Owens said. "Javonni's mother passed when she was little so Curtis raised her, and they had a great bond." And Jenkins had now been raising her own son. "[Jenkins] was raising her child, doing good for herself, and for someone to take her life like she's trash, you gotta be some kind of monster," Owens said.
Jenkins' co-workers felt a little relieved that Jenkins' son was safe, but nobody could overlook the tragedy that befell him. "For them to take her away from her son - that's all that baby knows," Owens said. "That's all he knows."
According to Chicago police, this was an isolated incident and there is no danger to the public.