Prayer Service Friday On 10th Anniversary Of Lane Bryant Murders

TINLEY PARK, IL -- A special prayer service will be held next week on the tenth anniversary of a tragedy that ranks among the worst in Chicago area history — and still remains unsolved after all these years.

A memorial service for the families of those killed in the Lane Bryant murders is set for noon on Friday, Feb. 2 at St. Stephen Deacon and Martyr Church, 17500 84th Ave., local officials announced this week. Residents are invited to attend the service and pay their respects.

Non-denominational in nature, its focus will be to remember five women who were killed on the same date in 2008 by an unidentified gunman who remains at large.

The incident — one police have called a robbery gone awry — unfolded on a Saturday morning in the Lane Bryant clothing store once located in Tinley Park's Brookside Marketplace on 191st Street Near Harlem Avenue. There, a gunman forced four shoppers, the store manager and an employee to the back of the store and opened fire.

Killed were Connie R. Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor; Sarah T. Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; Carrie Hudek Chiuso, 33, of Frankfort; Rhoda McFarland, 42 of Joliet; and Jennifer L. Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Indiana.

Only one woman, the store employee, survived after playing dead and waiting for the gunman to leave. For her safety, she has never been identified by police. A decade later, not a soul has been charged in connection with the slayings. The case remains one of the Chicago-areas greatest unsolved mysteries.