A family in Hanover Park, Illinois, is mourning after their matriarch was fatally shot, moments after dropping her son off at school. The woman had told police she was being stalked, even reporting the harassment the evening before her premature demise.
Now family members are saying the person who they believed killed her was at one time a close connection.
On Monday, Feb. 13, around 8:30 a.m., Clarice Taylor, 41, was killed outside of her neighbor’s home. Officers from the Hanover Police Department, the agency family members said she had called previously about being stalked, discovered her lifeless body with a bullet wound to her head, ABC 7 News reports.
Taylor’s sister, Chianni Hopkins, said she was on the phone with Taylor when her sister said the man had approached her at the school.
Hopkins recalled her last conversation with her sister, around 8:27 a.m., saying, “She said, ‘Why he just rush me?’ And, she said, ‘Oh my God, this is him. Call you back.’ ”
“She was gone within that five minutes,” the bereaved sister shared.
Henry Aarosinski lives close to where Taylor was discovered. He recalls hearing the gunfire and worrying that someone, possibly a child, was hurt, according to ABC 7 News.
“It was 8:25 this morning, I was just waking up, turning the news on, and all of sudden I heard real loud shots, six in a row, bang,” he said. “That’s the opening that goes to the park and garage school, so at 8:30 in the morning, that’s when all the little grade school kids are going down that alley, so at least it wasn’t a little kid that got shot.”
Because of the proximity to the elementary school, the campus, and another middle school were placed on a “soft lockdown,” as law enforcement searched the community for the suspect. Because it is a homicide investigation, the DuPage County Metropolitan Emergency Response and Investigations Team Task Force has joined the HPD in its pursuit of justice for the woman.
Another neighbor, whose home surveillance camera captured the shooting, immediately shared his footage with law enforcement, noting that the person who attacked Taylor was driving an older model gray Chevy Malibu with heavy front-end damage. HPD asked him to not share the video publicly, and collected it as a part of their investigation.
The family, both her sister and three of her daughters, were aware of the troubles Taylor was having with the person they believe to be the suspect, a person her daughter Delyla Thomas identified, through a description for a GoFundMe account on which she’s listed as organizer, as Taylor’s “husband.” Hopkins insisted her sister had called HPD on the individual several times in the past.
“She still had to call the police on him that night. He killed her that next morning,” Hopkins said.
Delyla Thomas said in an interview with NBC 5 News, “She got the protection order, we changed locks, he would sit outside our home for hours stalking house – banging on doors. She made too many reports about this.”
In retrospect, Hopkins is wondering if she could have done more, saying, “We just didn’t think it would end like this.”
“If I knew my mom was not going to come home, I would have never let her go out the door,” said her daughter Janae Alexander.
The GoFundMe account set up to help the traumatized family recover from this unexpected loss shares more details about her injuries, including that she was shot seven times, with one bullet to her head. The family has set a goal of $15,000 to assist in this time of need, but has only raised a little over $2,600.
Taylor leaves behind a legacy of love. Her children describe her as “the best person,” “the best mom,” and “the best wife anyone could have.”
Police are asking if anyone has information about the tragic shooting that they call and leave a tip with Lt. Ralph Gniewosz at 630-823-5516.
