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2025 marks the passage of 17 years since five innocent victims were brutally & senselessly murdered while one victim survived, only after playing dead inside the back room of a Lane Bryant clothing store within a peaceful Chicago suburb. Sadly, this case remains unsolved to this day. Recently, other podcast networks have brought attention to this case, but we also wanted to cover it since it’s personal to our family & my sister-in-law was actually scheduled to open that very Lane Bryant on the morning of the murders.
At 10:44 am, forty-four minutes after the store opened their doors to customers, a 911 call came through from the store. The dispatcher heard a whispered voice of the store’s manager say, Lane Bryant, while a man’s agitated voice could be heard in the background. Tragically, moments after the call ended the man shot the six victims one-by-one in the back of their necks execution-style.
We’re stepping back to Groundhog Day, Saturday, February 2, 2008, a blustery, cold winter morning in Tinley Park, Illinois with temperatures hovering in the 20s. Tinley Park, Illinois, otherwise known to locals as simply Tinley, is a suburb situated 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Chicago.
Two Lane Bryant employees were gearing up to open the store on what began as a typical, quiet morning; they were anticipating a busy day since the store was holding a clearance sale. Lane Bryant is a women’s clothing store specializing in plus-size clothing. This particular franchise was situated in the Brookside Marketplace outdoor plaza on 191st & Harlem. What began as a routine morning suddenly ended in unimaginable violence.
What happened inside the store that morning became one of the worst mass murders in Chicago history & despite the passage of seventeen years, the murderer has never been identified & this lack of justice has only intensified the anguish that the victims’ families deal with on a constant basis.
This case is near & dear to our hearts since my sister-in-law, Erika, was actually scheduled to open the store that morning as she did nearly every Saturday. While she was working the previous evening on Friday, she stayed longer than scheduled to help her busy co-workers close the store. While they were going about their tasks, Erika was chatting with her boss, 42-year-old Rhoda McFarland, who insisted that Erika take the next day off to celebrate her 25th birthday. The culture within Lane Bryant was very tight-knit & co-workers often supported one another, covering a shift for someone when needed & Erika was no exception. Rhoda assured Erika that Saturday would be covered & she should enjoy the day off to celebrate her birthday.
Had that moment passed without the suggestion of an unexpected day off, our two kids would have likely never known their aunt. When Erika called us later that Saturday morning in hysterics, I was about five weeks pregnant with her first nephew. Each birthday that she has celebrated since is a terrible reminder of that horrific day.
On that particular Saturday, Rhoda herself was not on the schedule, but she decided to stop over at the store to help her part-time weekend employee get ready to open. She figured things would be a little more hectic than usual for her employee, an unnamed 33-year-old nursing student.
According to Erika, before the store opened for the day, the covering manager routinely took the money from the prior shift & deposited it at the bank. They would leave about $200 in the register to make change as customers began making their first purchases of the day.
Rhoda & her employee officially unlocked the front doors of the store at 10 am & within minutes, their first customers began filtering in & browsing the racks of clothing. It was right around this time that a man came in who carried himself with the air of a delivery man. He carried a stack of papers that only reinforced this idea & spoke with Rhoda & her employee near the front of the store for several minutes. However, Rhoda knew that no delivery was scheduled for that morning. To clarify this fact, she called a nearby Lane Bryant to see if the delivery was intended for that location.
This person was later described as a Black man somewhere between 25-35-years-old, 6’0”-6’2” in height with a husky build with a weight proportionate to his height. His skin tone was medium to dark & his hair was braided with 3-5 puffy corn rows that were pulled toward the back of his head. One distinctive lone braid hung down his right cheek near his ear & was adorned with four light green beads at the end. He had no visible scars or tattoos. He wore clothing that was dark in color beneath his waist length jacket with black jeans that had embroidery or rhinestones on the back pockets similar to a cursive G while he wore a charcoal gray ski/skull cap on his head.
After he was inside the store for about fifteen minutes, it became very clear that he was not there for a delivery when he suddenly pulled out a .40-caliber Glock handgun & began shouting at everyone who was inside the store. This included Rhoda, her 33-year-old employee & two customers.
The man demanded that Rhoda & her employee retrieve the cash from the store’s register as he screamed for each woman to hand over their wallets as well as their visible jewelry.
The group of four women were then herded at gunpoint to the back of the store in an area that was designated for employees only. Once here, each of the women’s hands were bound behind their backs with duct tape that the man brought with him while he demanded they all lay face down on the floor. While these four victims lay trembling on the floor, the man began to make sexual advances toward at least one of the women with a degrading grope.
He went back out to the front of the store & took underwear from a display & placed it over the head of each victim, likely to obstruct their vision. Meanwhile, the front doors of the store remained unlocked & open to the public which allowed additional customers to innocently filter in who were unaware of the horrors of what was happening in the store’s back room.
During this time, two additional women came in to browse for an outfit that morning & just so happened to interrupt the gunman. Like the four others, they were forced to the back of the store at gunpoint, making it a hostage situation that now totaled six women. Their hands were also bound with duct tape & they were ordered to lay face down on the floor. When one of the women began to fight back against the gunman, he struck her in the face at least once, likely pistol-whipping her with the butt of his gun, leaving her bloodied & stunned.
By this point about forty minutes had gone by & the once calm & collected gunman began to grow increasingly agitated. During a moment of distraction, Rhoda seized her opportunity & despite the fact that she’d been bound, she somehow managed to quietly dial 911, unbeknownst to the gunman.
The call came through the Will County Sheriff’s Department & was quickly transferred to the Tinley Park Police who maintained jurisdiction of the location of where Lane Bryant was. Rhoda’s heartbreaking plea for help could be heard as she whispered, Lane Bryant. The audio of the call cuts in & out while man’s voice can be heard in the background although it’s difficult to understand what he’s saying. If you listen closely, you can hear him say, I’m losing it & Foolishness.
It’s possible that the gunman noticed what Rhoda was doing as only moments after the 911 call, he opened fire on each of his six hostages in what became known as an execution-style mass shooting. Five of the six women likely died a very quick death while the sixth woman just happened to turn her head at the very last second which allowed the bullet to graze rather than enter her neck. Wounded, but still alive, she laid unmoving on the floor, hoping with everything that the man would think that she was dead.
A police officer just so happened to be on a call in the plaza that morning near the Super Target, maybe only a few hundred yards away from where these six innocent women were being held & murdered, completely unaware of what was happening. After the 911 call ended, he arrived at the store within maybe a minute & sadly, the killer still managed to get away, slipping through the hands of justice probably by mere seconds.
Because he got away so quickly, it’s theorized that the gunman had a getaway car since there was no sign of him when officers began to make a sweep of the store as well as the plaza & surrounding area.
As the first officer arrived at the scene at 10:46 am, he came upon the five deceased victims as well as the one survivor & as he called in the details, additional officers began to arrive within minutes. Paramedics attempted to treat each of the victims, but sadly five innocent women were pronounced dead at the scene.
The Tinley Park officers were quickly joined by investigators from neighboring cities & counties & soon, the entire Brookside Marketplace plaza was shut down. They began to sweep through the entire plaza which contained not only Lane Bryant & Target, but also Petsmart & other popular stores & restaurants.
Sean Tyus, a Black man who just so happened to be sitting in his car in the Target parking lot, was apprehended & detained for more than an hour as officers continued to ask him Where is the gun? The soles of the man’s shoes were examined & he was asked if he’d removed the four light green beads from his braided hair. Confused, he explained that he was simply waiting for his girlfriend who was shopping inside Target. After investigators determined that the couple arrived after the shooting, Sean was cleared from the case.
Police utilized helicopters to scour the surrounding area of the shopping plaza in the hours after the shootings, but because the location is situated right off interstate 80, the killer could have quickly fled the area & even been out of the state & over the border of Indiana in under an hour.
The surviving victim bravely recounted the harrowing events of that morning to investigators & worked with a sketch artist to create a detailed composite sketch which was released to the public nine days after the murders on February 11. However, months turned into years & the grief-stricken family members of the victims were left without any sense of justice. The man who had come into the store that day & callously took the lives of what he believed to be six victims, was a free man, out living his life while the lives of so many people were forever changed.
42-year-old Rhoda McFarland had only just gotten engaged to her fiance, Stewart. She was laid to rest in Crest Hill, the same town where she had once worked as a pastor. 800 people gathered to honor her life & those who love her don’t want her to be remembered as a victim, but rather as the person she was in life. She had three brothers & one sister & after graduating from Lyons Township High School in 1984, she moved on to the U.S. Air Force.
22-year-old Sarah Szafranski was the youngest of the victims who had only recently graduated from Northern Illinois University in May 2007. The oldest of three children, she was a bubbly, smart & kind person who was loved by all who knew her. She was a homebody who loved to play board games & spend time with her boyfriend, Brian. That Saturday, she was shopping at Lane Bryant for winter work clothing for the job she had lined up at CNA Financial Corp. in Chicago.
33-year-old Carrie Chiuso was from Frankfort, Illinois. Her memorial service was held in the church where she & her husband Tony had gotten married less than two years earlier. The couple had begun discussing the idea of starting a family together. She earned her bachelor’s degree at DePaul University & a master’s degree at Loyola & worked as a social worker helping at-risk youths at the high school she graduated from years earlier, Homewood-Flossmoor. She stopped by Lane Bryant that morning to look for an outfit to wear for a meet-up with former classmates from DePaul she had planned for that evening. During her memorial, the principal at Homewood-Flossmoor spoke of Carrie & said, Where people are ordinary, Carrie put extra in front of ordinary. She quietly was a part of all that we do.
37-year-old Connie Woolfolk had been working the overnight shift at the Target that shared the plaza with Lane Bryant. She was trying to make ends meet while she was developing a family mortgage company alongside her mom. She had 10 & 16-year-old sons who just so happened to attend Homewood-Flossmoor High School, where Carrie worked. Connie had a fierce love of her family & her youngest son suffered from spina bifida & required a lot of her attention & care.
Connie stopped into Lane Bryant that morning to pick up a new outfit after treating herself to a rare mani/pedi since she was going to a birthday party with friends at Ed & Joe’s Pizza in Tinley. She’s likely the customer who fought back against the shooter as not only did she have bumps & bruises to her face, but also scratch marks on her body & blood under her fingernails which gave the police a potential DNA sample to test.
34-year-old Jennifer “Jeni” Bishop was the fifth & final victim from South Bend, Indiana who was a mother to three young children, ages 7, 5 & six months. Despite her professional successes, Jeni’s children were her life. She was an intensive care nurse at Memorial Hospital who worked her way up the ranks to charge nurse where she was known to her co-workers as a compassionate, kind & efficient RN. She traveled to Tinley Park that morning with her husband of nine years, Brian, since he had a work conference in town that day. On a whim, Jeni popped into Lane Bryant to pass the time & to pick out an outfit for the evening. She had only just celebrated her 34th birthday four days earlier when she was given a gift card for the store as a present.
The surviving victim was a 33-year-old part-time employee of Lane Bryant who only covered weekends since she was attending nursing school during the week. In order to protect herself, she’s chosen not to reveal her name to the public & has been dubbed Martha by some reporters. She survived her injury since as the shooter fired the gun in her direction, she turned her head which caused the bullet to graze, rather than enter her neck. She was treated at the scene until she was transferred to a local hospital & released the next day. Because she was the lone surviving witness of the gunman who remained at large, she was kept in protective custody so that the killer couldn’t come after herself or her family.
The survivor spoke with investigators on a number of occasions to provide them with details in hopes of finding the shooter. Since she was the only eyewitness to the tragedy, her narrative has painted the picture of the events of the nightmarish morning.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, she wrote a letter to the loved ones of the five victims who did not survive the attack that morning. The letter ended up being delivered to the press by the Tinley Park police & read,
On Saturday, February second, an unspeakable tragedy occurred & five of the bravest women I have ever met were senselessly murdered & taken from their families. My deepest sympathies & condolences go out to their family & friends. Please know that during the unfathomable events of that day, their thoughts were focused on you & coming home. My heart aches that they were unable to do so & I am working with the authorities in any way possible for all the victims. I ask that the media please respect all of our families & allow us to grieve & cope privately with the horrific crime that ripped our worlds apart. I also ask that everyone respect that neither I nor my family can discuss the horrible events of that day. I thank everybody who has expressed concern & ask that any person who can assist in the investigation contact the authorities immediately.
As word of the horrific mass murders quickly spread throughout Tinley Park & neighboring suburbs of Chicago which are generally known to be a safe area, many believed what happened at Lane Bryant to be a robbery gone wrong.
Investigators looked very closely into the backgrounds of each of the six women involved to determine if the man had a connection to any of the victims & a potential vendetta against them. However, these women were productive, hardworking, good people. Some worked retail, one was starting out in a new career, another a social worker, a nurse; they were mothers, wives, daughters. They didn’t lead high-risk lifestyles & nothing within their backgrounds suggested that they had previously known this man. The four shoppers who came in that day did so by chance; the man wouldn’t have been able to anticipate this making it unlikely that they were specifically targeted.
The killer loitered around the store for about 40 minutes before his actions turned violent & threatening which would suggest that none of the women recognized him or showed any sort of familiarity toward the man who remained unmasked throughout the whole ordeal.
The only motive investigators were left with was robbery simply because nothing else fit. Not only had the man taken money from the store itself, but also from the victims. With this, he made off with somewhere around $200 in addition to whatever money he received from the jewelry or wallets that he stripped from the victims. Somewhere around $250 for five lives lost; six in the killer’s mind.
Over the years, people have been very outspoken about the fact that the motive for what happened was likely unrelated to robbery as Lane Bryant is not a cash-laden setting since many of the customers make their purchases with cards rather than cash & much of the clothing is also very affordable.
Since the killer entered the store just after the doors opened for the day, he may have made the assumption that the money from the night before was still in the register unaware that the manager had already made a bank deposit.
The spokeswoman for Lane Bryant’s parent company, Charming Shoppes Inc, made a statement in the days after the murders in regards to the expected cash amount in the store that morning & said, But certainly it was early in the day so one would assume that cash levels were pretty low.
Some theorize that the man may have been a drug addict who was desperate & would have been satisfied with any amount of cash for a quick fix. Since the horrific ordeal within the store lasted nearly an hour, during which the gunman began to lose his control over the situation, drug use of withdrawal is a possibility.
After the man ordered the women to the back of the store, he bound their arms with duct tape & placed undergarments over their heads in order to obscure their vision, leading some to believe that he may not have initially intended to shoot them. However, during his time in the store prior to this, he interacted with the victims with his face exposed.
Based on the timing of Rhoda’s 911 call, it’s possible that he made a snap decision to shoot his victims so they would be unable to provide authorities with his description. However, the call has been a valuable piece of evidence as it gave investigators the man’s voice & perhaps advancements in technology will use this to find the killer.
An unnamed source within law enforcement who spoke with the Chicago Sun-Times in 2008 believes that the man likely planned to continue to rob additional customers as they filtered into the store that morning, just as he had with his last two hostages. He would continue stealing more & more from each person after they were ordered to the back of the store at gunpoint, bound & isolated. When he realized that Rhoda called 911, he knew his thieving scheme was over. This source went on to say, She tried to close the phone & he shoots her. Then he shoots the rest of them.
But because the killer remains free, these are only theories. Investigators were left to work with the evidence left behind & the information from the surviving witness as well as from any potential witnesses from around the high-traffic area of the plaza.
The surviving victim, who lived in Mokena at the time, provided police with the bulk of the information available in this case, including how the gunman entered the store, what he did during the 40 minutes before he took his victims captive, how he guided & bound each woman in the back of the store as well as the eventual shooting.
Rumors have been discussed about potential DNA evidence obtained from the crime scene that include mention of a disposable coffee cup that the shooter carried that morning. However, the existence of this coffee cup nor specifics on what evidence was collected from the crime scene has been confirmed by law enforcement, but it’s believed that a DNA sample was obtained.
There is also the mention of the blood found under Connie’s fingernails, but because the gunman has not been identified, it would suggest that there either wasn’t enough DNA left behind or it wasn’t a match to a sample within the FBI CODIS database. This would mean that the man has no prior criminal history, nor has he been caught on any offenses since that time in early 2008. Living a violent lifestyle, there’s also the possibility that the man is now deceased & could have died shortly after this mass shooting.
Based on the bullets & shell casings collected in the back room of the store, the gunman utilized a .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic handgun that he took with him when he fled from the store. This weapon has never been recovered despite exhaustive searches in nearby forested areas, bodies of water, trash cans or anywhere else near the crime scene.
Sadly, because Lane Bryant lacked security cameras, there is no footage of the gunman. Police visited other area businesses in hopes of obtaining footage of the man that may have reinforced his appearance as well as his getaway route & source. The most useful video stemmed from the Target within Brookside Marketplace that sat only a few hundred feet away from Lane Bryant. Although the footage was grainy, a team from NASA was able to discern that two vehicles pulled in front of Lane Bryant that morning just around the time the shooting began.
The two cars seen in the footage were a dark sedan & a larger SUV-type vehicle that entered the camera’s frame at 10:39 & 10:40 am, respectively. Rhoda’s 911 call was placed at 10:44 am, five & four minutes later. Both of these cars left one minute later at 10:45 am, one after the other, suggesting that they may have been somehow involved. One may have been the lookout car while the other was the getaway car.
If this was the case, it would mean that this was a planned operation carried out by a minimum of three individuals. Within one minute of the shooting, both cars vanished & the identities of the drivers remain unknown. Because the footage was incredibly blurry, their license plates were unreadable.
Two versions of Rhoda’s 911 call were eventually released to the media; the original call where Rhoda’s whispered voice could be heard with the shooter’s voice in the background as well as one that focused on the shooter’s voice.
Because the shooter had a unique hairstyle in regards to the single braid that trailed down near his right ear which was adorned with four light green beads, investigators visited area salons in hopes that someone might know him, though they were unsuccessful.
Criminal profilers, Greg McCrary & Clint Van Zandt, who identified the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, assisted the team by creating a profile for the killer which they shared with the Chicago Sun-Times. Despite the fact that the man’s DNA was not a match to any in the system, it’s their belief that he was previously incarcerated. The fact that he was so easily willing to murder six innocent women suggests that he vowed to himself to never go back. He likely believed himself to have been mistreated by society. They also theorized that he may have known one of the victims or personally targeted them & believe that this victim may have been able to identify him, leading him to shoot all six women.
According to Gary McCrary, Once they’ve killed somebody, in (a psychopath’s) way of thinking, everybody has to die.
According to Clint Van Zandt, Either way, something went wrong that caused him to take six women down. Maybe one of the victims recognized him or he felt he’d been recognized.
They believe that this man is a highly dangerous person who would be willing to kill anyone in a position to help the police catch him, including a girlfriend, a relative or someone close to him.
John Kelly, a criminal profiler who has worked on the case through his organization, System to Apprehend Lethal Killers (STALK, Inc), developed a potential profile & believes the man lives outside the area, possibly in a bigger city. He likely has some experience delivering to businesses based on the fact that he entered Lane Bryant posing as a delivery man. Entering the back door & showing a manager the paperwork could also serve as a ruse to get inside the business to look for cameras. His actions proved he was impulsive & desperate for money possibly related to an addiction or gang ties.
The fact that he came into the store on a busy Saturday morning when a sale was being held implies that he is not a sophisticated criminal. He chose a busy plaza with the potential for many surveillance cameras, he wore no mask in broad daylight during a time when the cash in the register was low due to the store only just opening; something an experienced criminal would be likely to know.
He was said to have looked up & around the store after he initially entered & spoke with the two employees, likely assessing if the store had surveillance which would suggest that he hadn’t scoped the location out prior to this time. His killings that morning may not have been his first homicide & may not have been his last. Because he killed everyone he believed could identify him, he likely quickly altered his appearance.
Despite the passage of nearly 2 decades, the police continue to investigate new leads & tips & refuse to classify the case as cold. Because the case remains unsolved, a lot of information has not been released, such as what evidence may have been left behind, including fingerprints, hair, shoe prints, etc. It is known that police examined the sole of Sean Tyus’ shoe, the innocent man who was sitting in his car waiting for his girlfriend at Target, which suggests that the shooter left a distinctive print behind. It’s been suggested that police have DNA evidence, possibly from the coffee cup & or the victim’s nails, but it’s unclear if it’s a workable sample. The gunman was not described to be wearing gloves so it would be assumed that touch DNA & fingerprints would have been left behind & then uploaded to AFIS (automated fingerprint identification system) which is a computer database of fingerprint records.
The Tinley Park police have been assisted by other investigative agencies, including the Illinois State Police, the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force, the FBI, the Secret Service, Scotland Yard & NASA. Investigators even reached out to the exclusive Vidocq Society, which is a Philadelphia based members-only club consisting of prior law enforcement experts who pool their knowledge & resources to help solve cold homicide cases, but sadly, they were also unsuccessful.
On the ten year anniversary of the shooting, February 2, 2018, with the help of Michigan State Police, an updated 3D image of the gunman was released that portrayed the shooter in a more realistic way. Although this led to many new tips & leads, it did not lead to the shooter’s identity.
The Tinley Park Lane Bryant location within Brookside Marketplace closed permanently after the horrific day of the shooting. The clothing that was inside the store at the time was dispersed to local charities & the building remained empty for nearly six years until TJ Maxx took over the lease in November 2013.
Harris Bank in Frankfort, Illinois curated the Tinley Park Memorial Fund by Lane Bryant’s parent company, Charming Shoppes Inc with the goal of assisting the victim’s family members. They also donated a reward fund, originally of $50,000 for information that could help lead to an arrest, while Crime Stoppers added an additional $5,000. Charming Shoppes later raised the reward to $100,000.
As the investigation continues, the pieces of the puzzle continue to fall into place through ongoing tips; some credible, some not. The hope is that one day the puzzle will fully come together & result in an arrest. Someone has the information for those last, missing pieces & if the reward money isn’t enough to bring a person forward, perhaps the weight of a guilty conscience will be the driving factor. With the help of new technology paired with tips from the public, new ways of processing evidence, new ways of looking at gathered information, the cold case can be cracked.
Since so many years have gone by, the volume of tips have naturally gone down, but the investigation remains active & all information received is taken very seriously.
The man responsible for taking the lives of five innocent women, Rhoda McFarland, Jennifer Bishop, Carrie Chiuso, Sarah Szafranski & Connie Woolfolk has never been held responsible for such an unfathomable act of violence. If you have any information in regards to this case, please contact the Tinley Park Police tip hotline at (708) 444-5394. A $100,000 reward is available for information leading to an arrest & any information provided will be kept confidential. You can also reach out to the tip email at lanebryant.tipline@tinleypark.org
References:
- Herald-News: Rhoda C. McFarland
- Hahn Funeral Home: Jennifer Bishop
- Lane Bryant Poster
- Chicago Tribune: ‘We’re missing one piece’: A decade later, deaths of 5 women killed in Lane Bryant store remain unsolved
- Fox News: Lane Bryant massacre: Criminal profiler says arrest could come in 2008 murder of 5 in women’s clothing store
- CBS News: Suburban Chicago police still investigating Lane Bryant murders 16 years later
- ABC 7 Eyewitness News: Future technology may help solve Tinley Park Lane Bryant murders
- Chicago Tribune: Police get ‘fresh set of eyes’ trained on Lane Bryant shooting
- Innovatrics: AFIS
- American Crime Journal: The Lane Bryant Massacre
- A&E: The Lane Bryant shootings: Chicago mass murder still unsolved more than 10 years later
- YouTube: MURDER: The Lane Bryant Murders
- Tinley Park Police Media Release
- City of Tinley Park: Lane Bryant homicide investigation
