Chicago crime: Missing teen found strangled in South Shore home; family speaks out
By Jessica D’Onofrio, Eric Horng
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CHICAGO (WLS) — The body of a missing teenager was found Tuesday night inside a home in the South Shore neighborhood.
The body was found inside a home in the 7200-block of South Phillips Avenue Tuesday night after police were called there.
Police said the victim was strangled. The Cook County Medical Examiner identified the victim as Amarise Parker.
That name matches an active missing person’s report for a 15-year-old girl who was first reported missing in August. Police said she returned home the next day, but was reported missing again on November 26.
The victim’s family said she is the same person who was found strangled inside that apartment last night. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
Her mother and grandmother are devastated. Parker’s mother Yahanna Clark spoke out Thursday night in anguish, describing her daughter as a blessing and now an angel.
“And the person that did this, you need to just give it up because God’s gonna get you anyway,” Clark said. “But you need to come forward and do the right thing.”
Clark said her daughter apparently knew someone who lives in the building. She had gone missing for a couple of weeks. Clark said called her Monday night to pick her up at that same building where she apparently knew one of the residents.
“She had reached out to me and was trying to come home,” she said. “And I picked her up on the corner right there, and she ended up leaving again.”
The very next night, Amarise was found dead.
“She was a lovely soul,” Clark said. “Everybody loved her. Although she had been missing, but she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve this.”
Community activist Andrew Holmes passed out flyers in this neighborhood, asking the public to come forward with information. A $1,000 reward is now being offered for answers.
Police said a death investigation is ongoing and no one is in custody.
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