Police, Boyfriend Plea For Help In Finding 25-Year-Old Woman's Killer
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The boyfriend of 25-year-old Aaeren O'Connor and Chicago Police are asking people to come forward if they think they may know anything about what was going on in the city's Heart of Chicago neighborhood Friday evening when a stray bullet struck and killed her as she sat in her car.
Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says police responded to a call at 6:40 p.m. about shots fired - but did not find O'Connor when they arrived on the scene. It wasn't until about 7:30 when O'Connor's friends found her and called 911 and police came back to the scene.
Guglielmi says detectives are looking at surveillance video in the area around 21st Street and Damen. Lt. Ozzie Valdez said police have one of their best detectives on the case.
O'Connor moved to Chicago from California about two years ago to be with her boyfriend of five years, Carlos Sorto.
"It feels like just a void," Sorto told CBS 2's Brad Edwards. "You existence almost doesn't matter. You don't care."
They met in Tokyo on study abroad and have been together five years.
O'Connor was on the phone with her family when she was struck by the potentially stray bullet. She became incoherent and the call disconnected.
Whoever shot that shot, Sorta says "It'd be nice he could come forward or he could get caught but it might not happen, and that's the sad truth. It's so bad that we accept that that in a city like this a young girls dies and it's like oh ok you're not going to find them anymore. That's the norm now."
Her co-workers have set up a gofundme page in her honor to help fund a scholarship and programs for at-risk youth in Chicago.