Lane Bryant offers to pay for victims' funerals
The national retailer that owns the Tinley Park clothing store where a gunman killed a manager and four shoppers has offered to pay for their funerals, a company spokeswoman said Thursday as families held the first of five memorial services.
Authorities meanwhile continued their search for the killer, who shot the women Saturday during what investigators said was a botched robbery at a Lane Bryant women's clothing store in Tinley Park. A sixth woman survived the attack.
Tearful teenage students from Homewood-Flossmoor High School were among more than 500 mourners who packed St. Joseph Catholic Church in suburban Homewood for the funeral of 33-year-old school counselor Carrie H. Chiuso of Frankfort.
"She helped me get in control of my anger," said sophomore Ivan Davis said. "She was there for me. She was the one who saved my life."
In addition to offering to pay for the funerals, Lane Bryant also set up a memorial fund this week to provide additional financial aid to victims' relatives.
"So many have asked how they can help the families of the victims of this horrible tragedy," LuAnn Via, Lane Bryant's president, said in a statement announcing the Lane Bryant Tinley Park Memorial Fund. "We have received an incredible outpouring of concern, prayers and offers of help from the community and our associates."
The statement didn't say how much money the company hopes to raise through donations but said "periodic distributions will be made to the families until the fund is exhausted."
A spokeswoman for Bensalem, Pa.-based Charming Shoppes Inc., the parent company for Lane Bryant stores, couldn't immediately say Thursday if the families had accepted the company's offer regarding the funerals.
"We have reached out to each to the families and have offered that support," Gayle Coolick said.
In addition to Chiuso, the dead have been identified as: store manager Rhoda McFarland, 42, of Joliet; Connie R. Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor; Sarah T. Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; and Jennifer L. Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Ind.
Coolick declined to say Thursday when the Tinley Park Lane Bryant might reopen, saying "it remained a crime scene."
Police said their manhunt continues.
Authorities have received more than 170 tips to a special hot line set up in the case, and more the 50 detectives have logged more than 2,000 combined hours on the investigation, a Tinley Park police statement said Thursday.
Photos of the five dead women and one victim who survived the attack hang in a task-force room, the statement added.
"Everyone involved in this case is working for those six victims, and for their families," the statement said. "Each one of (the detectives) is dedicated to bringing the murderer to justice."