The bodies of two teens reported missing in Chicago last week were discovered shot to death in a field on the city’s Southside, Chicago police announced Monday.
Authorities found the bodies 16-year-old Raysuan Turner and 17-year-old Darnelle Flowers on Sunday night near Golden Gate Park, both with gunshot wounds to their bodies, station ABC 7 reported. Two suspects have been taken into custody and are being investigated for the killings.
Police say they believe Darnelle Flowers (left) and Raysuan Turner were the victims of a robbery. (Images courtesy of Fox 32)
Friends say the two teens had been hanging out lately and were reported missing Friday. Police spokesperson Anthony Gugliemi said detectives believed the pair were victims of a robbery, adding that one of the teens was involved in a gang. Authorities are still working to determine if the gang connection was a factor, however.
Turner and Flowers’ murders came during yet another weekend of bloodshed in Chicago, during which deadly shootings claimed the lives of six people and left 53 others wounded, according to the Associated Press. This past weekend still wasn’t nearly deadly as the first weekend in the month, which saw 11 people shot and killed between 3 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Monday in an eruption of violence mostly attributed to gangs. Nearly 70 others were injured
“These individuals that keep pulling these triggers just feel like they can continue to do it because they are getting away with it,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at a news conference.
Despite the recent violence, department statistics show homicides in Chicago are down so far this year compared to this same time last year. The number of shooting victims has also fallen to 1,942, compared to 2,332 in 2017.
On Sunday, community members rounded up a search party to look for Turner and Flowers. The teens’ mothers also joined in on the search with authorities. It was during that search that police said one of the teen’s mothers received a text message telling her she could find her son’s body in the nearby field.
“All of a sudden, we’re leaving and then they got another call saying that the bodies were behind a house out here,” local activist and crisis response leader Andrew Holmes told ABC 7. “And I think the Chicago Police Department came out and they went back in and then we all came here and we were footsteps away from this house where they were.”
” … It’s tough that they were laying right there and we were right here,” he added.
Police say the killings are being investigated as a homicide. So far, no formal charges have been filed.
