Cops: Man shot himself after killing ex-wife’s friend, shooting her
Alonzo Little Jr. 17 (right) and one of his relatives at the shooting scene outside his house in Sauk Village this morning. (Abel Uribe/ChicagoChicago reviews
Tribune)
Alonzo Little Jr. gazed at the puddle of blood in his driveway and streaks of blood on the side of his Sauk Village house Saturday morning, reliving the events that left his mother hospitalized and her friend and his former stepfather dead.
The 17-year-old high school senior was getting out of the shower just after 9 p.m. Friday when he heard shots in the family home in the 22400 block of Jeffrey Avenue in the south suburb.
After checking on his 5-year-old half- brother, Kavon, Little ran to the basement, where he said he found “blood all over the place,” but nobody around.
Little left the house and ran into police, who filled him in. His mother, Rhonda Mabry, had sought refuge at in a neighbor’s home. Her friend, Robert Allen, had staggered out of Mabry’s house and collapsed on a neighbor’s driveway, where police found him.
Allen was pronounced dead at 10:45 p.m. Friday at St. Margaret Mercy Hospital in Dyer, Ind., according to the Lake County, Ind., coroner’s office.
A short time later, Mabry’s ex-husband, Paul Gunn, was identified as the shooter and Sauk Village police put out an alert with a description of his vehicle over the Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network, police said. He was pulled over by police a few miles away in Markham, near 162nd Street and Dixie Highway.
Gunn then fatally shot himself, Sauk Village police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. He was declared dead at 10:44 p.m. at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in HarveyHarvey reviews, according to the medical examiner’s office.
It was the third murder-suicide in the Chicago area in as many days. On Wednesday, an Addison man killed his wife, two children and himself. On Thursday, an East Garfield Park man killed his new wife and himself. The three cases are unrelated.
Allen, 43, was up visiting Mabry from Carthage, Miss. Little said his former stepfather likely misjudged the relationship and lost his temper.
“He [(Gunn)] had jealousy issues. It’s just stupid. He was taking it for something it wasn’t,” said Little, who attends Bloom Trail High School in Chicago Heights. “They [(Mabry and Allen)] were just friends.”
Little said he never got along with Gunn.
“I never liked him. They [Gunn and Mabry] used to argue a lot.”
Mabry underwent surgery Saturday at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, family said.
Gunn had a lengthy criminal history dating back to at least 1993, including charges of domestic battery, assault and phone harassment, court records show. Gunn and Mabry, who, family said, were married less than three years, divorced in 2006. Mabry filed for an order of protection, records show.
Little said Gunn disappeared for about a year and a half after the divorce, but then started coming around again to spend time with Kavon.
According to Gunn’s cousin, Alexis Cobbins, Gunn lived with his mother in a frame one-story house on a narrow frontage road along 159th Street just east of Interstate Highway in Markham. “We’re all shocked. This isn’t him at all,” said Cobbins, who lives next door to Gunn’s house and said she has known him since they were both children.
Mabry’s family members, meanwhile, spent Saturday at the hospital, relieved that she survived the shooting.
“I’m just thankful she’s going to pull through,” Little said of his mother.
–John Byrne and Deanese Williams-Harris
