Victims Identified In Shooting Spree From Chicago To Evanston

EVANSTON, IL — More details are emerging about Saturday's deadly rampage that left three people dead in Chicago before the gunman was killed in a shootout with Evanston police.

Four others were critically injured, including an 81-year-old woman, a 77-year-old woman getting her mail, a 15-year-old girl riding in her mother's car and a woman who was taken hostage and shot in an Evanston restaurant. She later died from her injuries, police said, becoming the fourth victim of the deadly rampage.

Authorities said 32-year-old Jason Nightengale targeted his victims at random, shooting people in at least four different locations over several hours.

The first person he shot was found fatally shot in his car around 1:45 p.m in the parking garage of an apartment building in East Hyde Park.

Yiran Fan, 30, was a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago, according to an obituary from the university. Fan came from China in 2014 and earned a master's degree from the university in 2015. He was hoping to propose his dissertation later this year on the role for oversight of financial institutions and markets.

Professors in the economic and business schools described him as an incredibly talented student who was held in high regard by his peers and beloved by those who knew him.

“Yiran had every trait to be a rising star in a few years,” said professor Zhiguo He, with whom Fan worked closely several on projects. “As an intuitive thinker on deep economic questions, he was recognized as super smart, extremely diligent and extraordinarily persevering. We just started working on something, and I never thought the journey would end so suddenly like this.”

Police said the next shooting took place about 15 minutes later and about four blocks away in the lobby of a high-rise condominium building.

Aisha Nevell, 46, was the building's security guard. She was working behind the desk in the building's lobby when Nightengale walked up and asked to use the phone, police said.

Nevell was a devoted mother, a foodie and avid traveler who would assist seniors in the building on her days off, a resident of the building who witnessed the shooting told the Chicago Tribune.

“She was a beautiful woman inside and out," the resident said of Nevell. "She had a club or group of girlfriends that were real foodies — their goal was to eat at every restaurant in Chicago."

Surveillance video showed the security guard speaking with Nightengale for several minutes before he opened fire in her direction, a condo board member told the paper.

Nevell was struck in the torso and was pronounced dead about a half-hour later, according to the medical examiner's office. A 77-year-old woman who was also in the lobby was hit in the head and is hospitalized in critical condition.

The shooter next headed to another apartment building on South East End Avenue and made his way upstairs, police said. A relative of his once lived in the building, according to police. Inside, Nightengale encountered someone he knew, pushed him into his apartment and stole his keys at gunpoint.

The gunman then pulled off in the stolen car and headed to a convenience store near the corner of 93rd and Halsted streets, where his shooting spree continued, authorities said.

The owner of the restaurant next door to the AK Food Mart told WLS-TV that Nightengale had gone to the back of the store to pick out a juice.

"When he come back, there's a customer in front of him," he said. "When he one back, he shoot him and right away he go down, and he shoot the cashier."

Anthony Faulkner, 20, the man in front of him, was fatally struck in the head. The cashier, an 81-year-old woman, was in critical condition.

Security camera footage reportedly showed the gunman jump the counter and grab a drawer from a cash register. He continued to fire as he walked out of the store shortly before 4 p.m.

At a vigil Sunday, Faulker's family and friends told WMAQ-TV he had moved back to Chicago from Minnesota less than a month earlier. He was working to get his life back on track after losing his job due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Anthony will not die in vain," a cousin said. "His love, his light will shine forever."

The shooter was able to flee the scene. A short time later, he fired into a car headed south on Halsted from 103rd Street, critically wounding a 15-year-old girl in the back seat riding in the back of her mother's car.

The girl, a student at Morgan Park High School who danced with her school and church, has not regained consciousness since the shooting, her mother told the Tribune.

“She is a vibrant 15-year-old that just lived to laugh and made you smile all the time," she said. "She liked to dance and be on social media and she loved her friends."

At some point, Nightengale began heading back north, firing more shots at police at the scene of the earlier convenience store shooting and eventually making his way up to Evanston around 5:30 p.m.

Officers were dispatched first to the CVS drugstore on Asbury Avenue just north of Howard Street for a report of gunfire inside, according to Evanston Police Chief Demitrous Cook. Nightengale ran across the street into the IHOP at 100 Asbury Ave.

"We believe in there he took a lady hostage," Cook said. "He shot her, injuring her in a critical manner, and then he took off out of the IHOP and ran eastbound on Howard Street into the Dollar General lot, where he was engaged by Evanston police officers, and he was subsequently shot and killed."

The woman, an Evanston resident, was rushed to St. Francis Hospital. Cook said Monday she later died from her injuries. She has not yet been publicly identified.

In a series of erratic videos posted to social media in the days leading up to the shooting, Nightengale describes targeting vulnerable victims for shooting or carjacking. In some, he can be seen brandishing a pistol similar to the gun Evanston police said he was carrying when officers fatally shot him.

"I'm going to just blow up the whole community," he says in one of the videos. It was not immediately clear if Nightengale was responsible for other recent crimes.

A family member told the Chicago Sun-Times that Nightengale was "fighting some demons" but had been a good father who was determined to do his best for his children.

Nightengale was devoted to his twin girls and had a good sense of humor, Friends told the Associated Press, though he had been through some rough times.

“Something had to happen in order for him to break him like that,” one friend said.

Cook County court records show Nightengale has past arrests on charges of domestic violence, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, theft, trespassing and gun and drug offenses, WLS reported. His most recent arrest in the county was in October 2019.

Evanston Mayor Steve Hagerty offered condolences to the families of the victims and praised the work of the officers who risked their lives to end the deadly rampage.

"Thanks to their quick response and heroic actions, Evanston Police officers shot and killed the gunman and brought the bloodshed to an end in a busy commercial area before anyone else could be hurt or killed," Hagerty said in a statement after the shooting. "While we are still learning more about the offender, his motive, and the totality of yesterday's tragic events, one thing is clear: If not for the brave actions of Evanston and Chicago police, many more innocent lives would have been lost."

Ald. Ann Rainey, 8th Ward, praised the police officers, dispatchers, paramedics and people who called 911 from inside the CVS for their response to the incident.

"This was a shocking situation that stunned everybody, that came on the heels of what went on in Washington this week, so every body please reach out and be kind to your neighbor, you never know what is going to happen," Rainey said at Monday's City Council's meeting. "It could have been any one of us, and if our police officers hadn't put a stop to this rampage, there could have been many, many — double digits could have been eliminated from our lives that night."

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown defended his officers' response speaking to reporters Saturday night.

“When you hear this whole story, it seems that you have a crystal ball of what he’s doing next, and we all know we don’t have a crystal ball where he goes next," Brown said. “We are responding to the scene as these crimes are happening, getting information, and again, he’s going to the next while we are trying to keep up with what’s happened previously.”

This article originally appeared on the Evanston Patch