Four months later, DuPage County mass shooting puts spotlight on ‘lost community’

Even now, more than 100 days later, the terrifying scenarios play on a loop in Twanda Carroll’s mind.

What if her apartment hadn’t been empty that night in June? What if her three young grandchildren had been staying with her like they did every summer? What if she and her daughter had decided not to spend an extra night with family in Wisconsin?

“I still get emotional,” Carroll, 51, said recently. “I’m just so hurt I start crying. What if something would have happened to my grandbabies, or my daughter, or me?”

Shortly before 12:30 a.m. on June 18, in a strip mall parking lot across from Carroll’s apartment off Illinois Route 83 near Willowbrook, a mass shooting killed one person and injured at least 22 others gathered for what had been billed as a Juneteenth celebration.

One of the bullets fired that night shattered Carroll’s patio window and lodged in the wall next to her living room couch. A second broke her bedroom window and tore through her closet into her kitchen wall.

“When I come home and think about how the bullets came through my house,” Carroll said, “I don’t see how we could have made it.”

Four months later, Carroll and others say the response to the mass shooting has only reinforced long-simmering feelings of neglect among the 3,000-plus residents clustered in apartment and condominium complexes in an unincorporated area on DuPage County’s southeastern edge.

Some question why DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick has made no public comments about the investigation, which thus far has yielded only one arrest. Others wonder why they haven’t received the same outpouring of support typically seen after mass shootings.

“It kind of seems like they swept us under the rug,” Carroll said. “That’s how we feel, that we don’t get the same attention as elsewhere.”

There are signs that’s changing. In recent weeks, DuPage County Board members have pledged more than $1.5 million for infrastructure improvements and to bolster the efforts of nonprofit organizations already working in the community.

“Now that the spotlight is shining on this community, we’ve got more momentum and I want to keep it up,” said Lucy Evans, a DuPage County Board member whose district includes the unincorporated neighborhood where the shooting took place.

‘His absence is noticed’

Mendrick’s office has said little about its investigation. His office has not held any news conferences and has instead issued sporadic news releases over the last four months. A spokesperson did not respond to emails seeking an interview with the sheriff for this story.

“As we have stated throughout our investigation, the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office is fully committed to attaining the most comprehensive understanding of what happened and why this tragedy occurred,” read an Aug. 29 release. “We appreciate and support the public’s right to know and intend to be fully transparent with the media and the public. Transparency, however, is a double-edged sword and we must be careful to safeguard the integrity of our investigation.”

His apparent unwillingness to talk about the case has raised eyebrows among some DuPage County Board members.

“I find it concerning that our sheriff has not issued a statement or held a press conference,” board member Elizabeth Chaplin said during a Judicial and Public Safety Committee meeting two days after the mass shooting. “As the person responsible for the unincorporated areas of DuPage County, his absence is noticed.”

While the county board has limited oversight of the elected sheriff, Chair Deborah Conroy said she’s repeatedly encouraged Mendrick to communicate with the public and with the family of Reginald Meadows, the 31-year-old father and fiance killed in the mass shooting.

“I’m very disappointed there was no public comment, no press conference addressing it,” Conroy said. “It’s incredibly frustrating.”

In news releases, Mendrick’s office has said investigators are working with federal, state and local agencies. More than 100 shell casings and multiple firearms were collected at the scene, the releases read, and investigators have reviewed “hundreds of hours of video footage” from businesses, cellphones and social media.

A 41-page incident report obtained by the Chicago Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request offers a brief glimpse of the chaotic moments that night.

Four deputies were on “foot patrol” near the parking lot the night of the celebration, which they estimated to be attended by around 200 people, maybe more.

They were dispatched a little before 12:30 a.m. to investigate a battery in progress inside an apartment building just north of the parking lot, across Honeysuckle Lane. As they ran toward the building, they heard gunfire lasting around 20 seconds.

“Screaming could be heard from the large crowd,” the report read. “People began running in all directions and vehicles were speeding from the scene.”

The deputies rushed to the parking lot, where they and others started caring for the injured as paramedics arrived.

The incident report includes brief mentions of people being detained immediately after the shooting. But the only charges came earlier this month. Anthony Mothershed, 19, of Aurora, is accused of shooting in the direction of other people at the celebration and faces felony charges of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and aggravated discharge of a firearm – direction of another person.

It’s unclear who organized the celebration, which neighborhood residents said took place last year as well. This year’s event did not have permits, county officials have said. It’s also unclear whether the strip mall’s owners allowed the celebration to happen on their property. A registered agent for the company listed as the owner previously declined to comment when reached by the Tribune.

Those questions are among the many that remain unanswered, four months later.

“We still don’t have answers. I still don’t know where some of his property is,” said Meadows’ fiancee, Ashley Miller, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stood at a podium during public comments at last month’s county board meeting.

“And I just want answers. I’ve never seen a mass shooting of such caliber take so long to get answers. My kids deserve answers. So, I’m here today to not only be the voice for Reginald, because his life was taken that night. But I’m the voice for my two children, because if I’m not their voice, then who will be?”

New hope for ‘a lost and forgotten community’

Around 20 years ago, Wendy Williams and her family left their south-suburban neighborhood and moved to the Hinsdale Lake Terrace apartments, one of four apartment complexes that make up the unincorporated pocket of DuPage County known to some as Willowbrook Corner, or Willowbrook Corners.

The long brick buildings encircling a retention pond and running along the west and north sides of the strip mall offered residents affordable, government-subsidized housing in one of the state’s wealthiest counties.

“It was a very nice community,” Williams, 63, remembered. “It had its problems but nothing major. But as time went on, I saw the lack of resources in the community.”

Williams eventually moved from the complex. But she started a nonprofit organization, Youth 4 Excellence Inc., that works with families in the community. Hers is one of a handful of nonprofits that have tried to fill in the service gaps in a neighborhood that Williams called “a desert,” its residents — many living at or below poverty — isolated by a lack of public transportation and afforded limited access to amenities enjoyed by their affluent neighbors.

“It is a lost and forgotten community,” Williams said.

At least part of that isolation is due to the area being unincorporated. Though Willowbrook and Hinsdale are found in the names of the neighborhood and some of its residential complexes, it has no affiliation with either town. Instead, it’s part of the county’s 3rd District, which covers portions of at least 10 communities and is represented by three county board members.

A week after the mass shooting, those three board members and the county board chair met with a group of community service agencies called the Willowbrook Corner Coalition to discuss ways the county could help residents.

Since then, the county board has pledged more than $1.5 million for services in the community over the next three years. About half that total is earmarked for two nonprofits, The Community House and the YWCA, to add social workers and counseling services for neighborhood residents. Another $750,000 will be used on sidewalks and lighting in the community, officials said.

More is in the works, officials said, including asking residents to choose a new name to replace “Willowbrook Corner.”

“The residents really do not like that name,” Evans said. “They have never been a part of Willowbrook, and they feel like they’re being tucked away in a corner.”

Solving the transportation issue could be a harder problem to fix. Around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pace discontinued a weekday bus route that once took residents to and from the Clarendon Hills Metra station three times in the morning and three times in the evening.

Since then, former District 3 board member Julie Renehan spearheaded efforts to bring public transportation back to the area.

“Transportation is a barrier to economic development. It prevents people from getting to jobs or school,” said Renehan, who left the county board last year. “It’s one of those things that could be a springboard to a positive circumstance. Transportation is such a hinge.”

The county is looking to find a company willing to operate a shuttle that would take residents to work or medical appointments. But Evans thinks there might be few companies with the ability to do that work. Instead, she thinks the county should look to partner with nonprofits and ride-sharing companies to offset some of the cost of those services.

Those efforts might not be enough to keep residents like Carroll from leaving.

Five years ago, she moved to the Hinsdale Lake Terrace complex (now called Acclaim at Hinsdale Lake) to be closer to her mom and grandmother. With three jobs, she wasn’t home much. But when she was, it was mostly quiet and peaceful.

“I enjoyed my stay here,” she said, “until the massacre.”

The bullets were collected by investigators, the windows and drywall repaired by maintenance staff. Two holes in her curtains are all the visible signs of that night.

A police car is now regularly posted in the strip mall parking lot, which looks to have new lights and landscaping and pavement.

But still, Carroll said she doesn’t feel safe. That first month after the shooting, she could barely sleep. She said she heard about counseling services offered after the shooting but the sessions were all booked up when she inquired.

Her children want her to move. She’ll probably stay in DuPage County, if she can. But where?

“I know anything can happen anywhere,” she said. “I’m just trying to stay safe.”

Her goal is to be gone by next summer, before her grandkids come to visit.