Its been EIGHT YEARS since a lone black gunman shot & killed 5 women and wounded another in a Tinley Park Illinois Lane Bryant Store - The police botched the case so badly, NOBODY WAS EVER ARRESTED

***UPDATE***FROM OUR E-MAIL: You're right. Someone forgot to check the forensics on the shell casings. However, the casings were matched, just recently, to a shooting incident in a black south suburb in 2007. Just before Lane Bryant. Two other shootings have been associated with the gun. Chicago PD recovered the gun recently. The problem with the case right now is proving who had possession of the gun during the shootings. Watch for the FBI to take credit.

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FEB 2, 2008 - Rhonda McFarland, Carrie Hudek Chiuso, Sarah Szafranski, Jennifer Bishop and Connie Woolfolk all MURDERED by a lone black male

Despite the passage of time, Maurice Hamilton says his hopes haven't dimmed that the man responsible for his sister's killing will be found.

Eight years ago, she and four other women were shot to death inside a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park, a crime police believe was initially intended to be a robbery.

Since the slayings Feb. 2, 2008, investigators have received nearly 7,000 leads, and tips still come in regularly to the Tinley Park Police Department, which has two detectives assigned to the case.

Along with Hamilton's sister, 42-year-old store manager Rhoda McFarland of Joliet, also killed were Jennifer Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Ind.; Sarah Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; Connie Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor; and Carrie Hudek Chiuso, 33, of Frankfort. A sixth woman, also a store employee, suffered a gunshot wound to the neck but survived and was able to provide police with a description of the killer.

Hamilton said that "it's not frustrating" that so many years have passed without an arrest. He said his family and the families of the other women are trying their best to move on with their lives.

"It's hard," he said. "You don't stop thinking about her."

A reward of $100,000 — much of it coming from the parent company of Lane Bryant, and the payout not contingent on a conviction in the killings — hasn't yet loosened any lips, although investigators are convinced that someone has information vital to solving the case.

"I firmly believe there is a small number of people aside from the offender who know who the offender is," said Tinley Park Detective Ray Violetto, who's been involved with the investigation almost from the beginning.

Hamilton said that is the hope the families have, that "someday, somebody will step up to the plate and do the right thing."

"You just hope and pray they do the right thing," he said.

I firmly believe there is a small number of people aside from the offender who know who the offender is.
- Tinley Park Det. Ray Violetto

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