The Lane Bryant Murders

   

  Tinley Park, Illinois is a suburb of Chicago. 

  In 2008, Tinley Park was the site of a terrible multiple murder. 

  These murders of retail workers and retail customers always always horrified me especially. In my 20s and 30s, in the late 1980s and the 1990’s I worked in retail as a manager and as a regular hourly employee. When the I-70 killer was killing retail workers in the Midwest, I was scared. I have spent long hours in retail stores that were in strip malls and also in regular type malls. The thing we feared was leaving the store at night with the deposit bag. Many times we would lock that in a safe in the store and do the deposit the next morning in the daylight. 

  We also feared going out to our cars at night and possibly being raped and murdered there. We all knew about the I-70 murderer. 

    Women in the United States ran the gauntlet just trying to make a living. We still do in many ways. It’s still dangerous out here for women. And “Pink collar jobs” are paid far less than “blue collar jobs” although we both create value for shareholders. 

  How many men worry about getting abducted, assaulted and murdered when they leave their job at the end of the day? It’s something I think about anytime I am walking to my car and especially at night. 

  As a retail worker I worried a little about being robbed in the store. Especially during the long shifts that I worked alone. But, when I had other employees there with me and customers as well; I would not have worried much about that at all.

   But, on February 2nd, 2008, in Tinley Park, Illinois, a man walked into a Lane Bryant clothing shop and committed a crime that was very different than just a robbery. 

For those that aren’t familiar with Lane Bryant, it is an American chain of women’s clothing stores. They specialize in plus size clothing. So, women who are a size 16 and up would shop there. They mostly offer business and casual clothes, dresses and skirts, and some special occasion clothing. Many of their stores were in strip malls. So the entrance to the store is outdoors. 

(I mostly worked in retail stores inside a mall because I felt a little safer with other stores facing our doors.) 

Rhoda McFarland was the store manager. She had proudly served our country in the AirForce. She was a nurse at Andrews Air Force Base. She later became an ordained minister and served her community in that way too. She was only 42 years old. 

  Connie Woolfolk was from Flossmoor.  She had been a straight A student at Crete-Monee High School. Connie had worked for the village of Park Forest. She was a Mom of two sons. Connie Woolfolk was a mortgage broker. She was 37. 

  Carrie Hudek Chiuso was a social worker at Homewood-Flossmoor High School. She had also graduated from that same school. She and her husband, Tony, were just starting their lives together. She was 33. 

 

  Sarah Szafranski was a paralegal. She was only 22. She was a graduate of Oak Forest High School. 

  Jennifer L. Bishop was a nurse from South Bend. She had come to Chicago with her husband. He was attending a conference. So, she decided to go out and do a little shopping. She was 34.

Another unnamed woman survived despite being shot in the neck. Police have never revealed her name for her safety. She provided a good description of the murderer. She was a part time employee of the store and was in her 30’s.

The perpetrator raped one of the women but police have also never revealed which woman was assaulted. 

It seems to me that the murderer came into this store specifically because it was a women’s clothing store. It was a business in which he had little chance of encountering a man. He probably thought he could more easily control the women there. 

He forced all 6 women to go into the back room. He robbed the store of about $200. One woman was able to dial 911 at some point while he was distracted. A recording exists with his voice in the background. 

He did not think this crime through at all.  He realized, probably, that he had spent too much time there. He may have thought that someone will notice that the door was locked and call police. He realized that he didn’t have an exit strategy. He realized that all the women have seen his face. At that point he may have panicked and shot each of the women. He then fled the store. 

This is a guy who is not terribly smart. He’s not a mastermind. He committed the rape even though it greatly increased his chances of getting caught. That’s not smart. 

He robbed a mature women’s clothing store. That’s also not smart. Women who buy business type clothes have debit and credit cards and don’t pay with cash typically. This isn’t a business where you would find a lot of cash. 

It’s also a dumb time of year to rob a clothing store. February is a slow month for clothing sales. Even if some customers still used cash there would not be much of it. 

I would guess that this man had a really good Mom who tried to keep him on the straight and narrow. She probably dressed nicely and worked in an office setting or as a teacher. She might have been a retail manager even. But, he’s angry at this point in his life. He rebelling. He’s maybe lashing out at and targeting women like his Mom. 

I think he did not have many friends and did not have much experience with criminal activity. No one went with him. He’s told no one about this all these years. The reward was immediately very large. 50,000 dollars. Now it is double that. Not one of his friends or family members has told on him. I think that’s because they don’t know. I also think he does not have many friends. He’s a loner. 

I don’t think this is any of the known Midwest serial killers or serial rapists. I think he committed this rape as an afterthought. He did not walk in there specifically to commit rape. But, he realized he had the opportunity. He may have realized he might never have this opportunity again. 

He was possibly also needing money for drugs. 

He hasn’t been caught because he’s not someone who is on the radar for big crimes like this. He’s a low level guy. Is he still out there?

Do investigators have any evidence to test? Can they use genetic genealogy techniques to narrow down and identify the killer? 

Is there someone who committed similar crimes? 

  I started looking at criminals who got in trouble for armed robbery. This criminal was not smart. Was he dumb enough to do it again? 

  I found a young man in old newspaper articles who committed a similar, but not as violent, crime in the following years. He committed armed robbery. He stole a couple hundred dollars from woman’s business near Tinley Park, Illinois.  I looked him up and he looks very much like the sketch of the Lane Bryant suspect. 

  I turned in a tip. Will investigators look at him? Is there still evidence to test? It is hard to tell. 

  This is the sketch of the suspect in this case:

  I hope for the families and friends of all these women that this killer will be caught and convicted. They deserve Justice. 

   After the murders more cameras were installed in many retail stores. Panic buttons were sometimes added as well. When I worked retail all we had was a land line phone. It is a shame that the cameras weren’t there in 2008 to deter crime. But, no one anticipated someone robbing a Lane Bryant. It’s not a place that ever does a big cash business.

  It may be that as time passes that someone who knows something will come forward. 

  Each of these women was very accomplished and each was important in their communities. In their brief lives they had already made an impact. The loss of each was felt deeply.