Group prays for retired state trooper who was shot and killed in Lisle cigar lounge

Regular patrons of a Lisle cigar lounge gathered outside the business to pray Sunday morning, two days after a shooting there left a retired state police officer dead and two others injured.

Gregory Rieves, 51, died Friday night after Lisa V. McMullan of Chicago suddenly pulled out a gun inside a room at the Humidor of Lisle and shot Rieves and two others at close range. She then took her own life.

The surviving victims - off-duty Trooper Kaiton Bullock and retired Special Agent Lloyd Graham - remained hospitalized in stable condition, officials said.

While the cigar lounge was closed Sunday, a group gathered in the parking lot of the business along 1600 Ogden Ave.

"Many of us decided that we were going to come here and pray together for the facility, for the staff, for Greg's family, for the other officers who were injured and for each other," said John Drake, an Aurora resident who is a member of the lounge.

Drake said many members of the lounge knew Rieves, who retired in March 2019 after a 25-year career with the state police.

"He had a heart of gold," Drake said. "He was very open to people, very light-hearted and very giving. He was always great to be around."

Authorities have not yet released a possible motive for the shooting. Police said they wouldn't interview the surviving victims until at least Monday to allow them to recover.

On Sunday, Lisle police said McMullan and Rieves didn't attend the same high school in the 1980s, as authorities originally reported.

However, they said the shooter knew the victims.

Drake said he had seen McMullan at the lounge many times before.

"She was always very outgoing and friendly with people," he said. "This is a total shock to all of us."

He said the big question is what happened.

"What caused it?" he said. "We don't know."

Tony Pulgine said he's struggling to make sense of it all because the Humidor of Lisle "has always been a place of joy and comfort."

"There's an old joke that you never have a fight in a cigar lounge," the Aurora resident said. "So this has hit us all very, very hard."