Residents shaken after UIC student found shot in Edgewater Beach apartment laundry room, neighbor found dead the next day in apparent murder-suicide, police say
A 23-year-old college student was found shot to death in the laundry room of her Edgewater Beach neighborhood apartment building Monday and the attacker, her next door neighbor, was found dead the next day in what police say is an apparent murder-suicide.
Brittany Kinlow, of the 1000 block of West Bryn Mawr Avenue, was pronounced dead at 1:41 p.m. Monday in the building where she lived, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
A person who walked into the laundry room called 911 when they found her unresponsive, police said.
Kinlow was set to graduate May 9 from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in music business, according to Sherri McGinnis Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for UIC.
During the execution of a search warrant, police found the body of 26-year-old Jovan Cabrera, her neighbor, who was pronounced dead at the scene in the same building about noon Tuesday, police and the medical examiner’s office said.
According to a police source, Cabrera shot Kinlow in the head and then killed himself.
Before officers found Cabrera, an alert had been issued by police to be on the lookout for Cabrera, who was to be considered armed and dangerous.
An autopsy Tuesday determined Kinlow died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the medical examiner’s office, which said Cabrera’s autopsy was pending.
Late Wednesday morning, a few onlookers gathered near the busy intersection at Bryn Mawr and Winthrop avenues.
One of them, Wendell Murray, said he moved into the building nine months ago. Murray said there are few families in the building but mostly people living alone, like himself.
Murray said he’d seen both Kinlow and Cabrera around before but didn’t know them personally. He said he’d seen Kinlow several times walking her dog as he waited for deliveries and exchanged hellos before.
“She was real pleasant, a real nice young lady,” Murray said. He wasn’t as familiar with Cabrera. “I didn’t even speak to him, just passed him going in and out.”
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