Chicago man shoots, kills ex-girlfriend, self inside loans store
A man shot and killed his former girlfriend and then himself on Friday in the downtown Chicago loans store where she worked, police said.
"It does not look like a robbery at this point, it looks like a domestic murder-suicide," Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told reporters at the scene of the crime just south of the traditional commodities exchange.
McCarthy said a preliminary investigation indicated the two deceased were "a female that works on the location and an ex-boyfriend."
The 100 block of W. Van Buren St. was blocked off with police tape, as crowds gathered, watching detectives and medical examiners go in and out of AmeriCash Loans, where the shootings happened.
Kelly Evans, 32, said she was scared and shaken up after hearing four shots at around 2:30 p.m., when she walked by on a bank errand.
"I can't believe it - during the daytime in a nice part of the city. What part of Chicago is nice anymore?" she said.
With some 400 homicides a year, Chicago has a high murder rate compared with other major U.S. cities. But some of its neighborhoods are much more crime prone than others, and murders and shootings in "The Loop," as the downtown is known, are not common.
