Jun 30, 2008 6:35 pm US/Central



Jun 30, 2008 6:35 pm US/Central

Victims Identified In South Shore Triple Murder

Police Say Murder Was Drug-Related And That All 3 Victims Were Convicted Felons

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Vanity Murff, 21, was found shot to death at an apartment building in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood late Sunday night. Two men, Corey Washington and Lawrence Jackson, were also found dead.

CBS

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Last night's three murders in South Shore brings the total to five people killed within a four block radius in the last month.

CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports that police say they have no suspects in the triple murder that occurred, but they believe the motive was drugs.

Sources say that the three victims had just left an apartment on the first floor, and that apartment was littered with drugs.

Neighbors say they are really frustrated by all the shootings.

They feel like they're in the middle of a war zone, and they're afraid there's nowhere to run.

"It's gang related, that's what it is," said neighborhood resident Quentin Lesley.

Lesley calls it like he sees it. He says there's a turf war going on between two rival gangs. Residents in this South Shore neighborhood are in the line of fire and fear being hit.

"Nervous...very nervous," Lesley said. "Ain't nobody supposed to go through this. It's crazy."

This time, the bears and flowers are for a triple murder. It happened last night in the hallway of a building at 78th and Kingston. Deyata Douglas heard the shots.

"Pow, pow, pow. It was actually six big shots," Douglas said.

Police say three victims were found in the bullet-ridden stairwell - Corey Washington, his friend Lawrence Jackson, and Jackson's girlfriend, Vanity Murff.

Murff, 21, telephoned her grandmother Sunday night at 8 p.m. to say she was coming home.Two hours later, she was dead; she had just started college last week.

Her grandmother, Cleora Murff, said, "She was getting ready to do something, they cut her life short."

Police responded to a report of shots fired near East 78th Street and South Kingston Avenue about 10:15 p.m., said police News Affairs Director Monique Bond.

Police said Vanity Murff was found lying near the vestibule of the apartment building at 7808 S. Kingston Ave. The two male victims in their 20s, Washington and Jackson, were found in an apartment of the building.

Lawrence Jackson's brother, Ricky Braxton, said, "It wasn't the person they was looking for. They shouldn't be going out here killing anybody like that."

Speaking of his dead brother, Braxton said, "He was a fun guy man. He just liked to play around and chill and to mess with females and stuff like that. Nothing bad. It wasn't no bad stuff."

The idea that someone could murder a 21-year-old female is particularly unsettling to some.

"They don't care, and me being a female out here, I feel for my safety," a neighborhood resident said. "They just shot three people. It don't make no sense. We have to be safety. We have to watch our surroundings, watch our backs."

"We gotta stay and live here," another neighborhood resident said. "The people who are doing this don't stay in this neighborhood. They get to go back and walk the streets."

Police say there was no sign of forced entry and the shooting was drug related, and that all three victims, including the female, are convicted felons. But relatives say Vanity was not involved in anything illegal.

"This was a person," said Cleora Murff, Vanity's grandmother. "She loved children, she didn't have any children. She loved her family. She had just started school. She was getting ready to do something with her life."

Friends and relatives ask anyone with information to come forward.

Murff said, "I don't understand the violence, no I don't. I would like anyone who knows anything about what happened, please step forward; you don't have to give the police your name and I know they've got hotlines. Please say something."

Calumet Area detectives are investigating the triple homicide but no one was in custody Monday evening.

CBS 2's Joanie Lum and Dorothy Tucker contributed to this report.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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