Chicago mother of 5 with gunshot wounds found dead inside house fire
CHICAGO (CBS)-- An investigation is underway after a woman was found dead with gunshot wounds inside a house that was on fire on the South Side Friday.
Police said around 12:45 a.m., officers on patrol noticed a small fire on the side of a house in the 6400 block of South Damen Avenue. Firefighters had to kick in the door and found an unresponsive woman near the back of the house.
The woman, identified as 32-year-old Raquel A. Adams by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, had a gunshot wound to the back of her head. Adams was a mother of five children.
She was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot spoke exclusively to Adams' sister and brother.
"She was my best friend," said James Adams about his sister. "She was everybody's best friend."
Her family wants the person responsible arrested. No one is in custody.
"I feel angry and I feel hurt," said sister Rachelle Adams.
On Thursday night, Adams brought her five children, ranging in age from 2 to 15 years old, to stay with her family. She then went back to the home she shared with her fiance in West Englewood. Just hours, later the fire that CFD called suspicious would start at the house.
"To have to think about my nieces growing up without a mother," Rachelle Adams said. "The youngest actually has disabilities and she was so strong-hearted on getting her together and making sure she got her therapy. Then her oldest, she's in high school. She can't even see her go to prom, but she's going to see her from the heavens, but it still ain't like having her here."
Adams' sister said she had just earned her GED and planned to open a full-service beauty salon in Little Village.
"She was very loving," Rachelle said. "Very caring in everything, everything in the book."
The officer who forced the door open at the home where Adams was found was treated for minor smoke inhalation and is expected to be OK.
Police are investigating.
