‘Mom was shot’: Family struggles with circumstances surrounding murder of woman

Tracy Showers drove up to Jewel to pick up her daughter and grabbed some bread and orange juice to boot.

The two of them headed home together in an SUV. Showers called her husband to let her know they would be at her house soon, he said.

she was in a good mood. She parked behind her residence in Austin, but within seconds she was shot in the head.

Showers, 55, was murdered outside his Austin home on February 28.

Now authorities claim the killings are the culmination of a criminal case prosecutors say began with an armed robbery in Oak Park. The prosecution claimed that he stole the keys to and took along an accomplice who participated, but his movements were tracked to the scene via an electronic surveillance bracelet.

Muhammad continued the spree alone and drove off in a stolen SUV, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said he got out of the car, approached the man sitting in the car and fired four shots. The man was not hurt.

Finally, prosecutors say he pulled up next to Showers’ SUV and shot her.

“It happened right outside our house,” said husband Pernell Showers. “I don’t understand what caused this. I don’t understand why it happened.”

Muhammad has been charged with first-degree murder in the killing, along with other felony charges related to pre-death assault charges. A Cook County judge ordered him to be held without bail on Saturday.A lawyer for Muhammad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pernell Showers was upstairs in the house when he heard his 24-year-old daughter scream the night his wife was killed. As he was running down the stairs, his daughter called him.

According to Showers, “Mom is depressed,” she said. “Mom was shot”

Outside he saw his wife lying on the ground and his daughter holding her. He checked his pulse, but he found nothing. He tried his CPR. Police arrived and asked him to back off.

“There are people who may or may not have a problem, may or may not be functioning properly, walking around with guns and violence in their hearts,” says Showers. “No reason, no rhyme.”

Chicago police detectives used mass surveillance video and data from an electronic surveillance bracelet alleged to be an accomplice to the robbery, according to a proponent to the court during Muhammad’s bail hearing, to arrest about three suspects from the first robbery. Tracked Muhammad to his killing miles away. Requests for comment from Muhammad’s lawyers were not immediately returned.

It started on the 200 block of Madison Street in Oak Park when the husband and wife parked their silver Audi Q5 and started walking, according to the proponent. They showed handguns and took bags, wallets, mobile phones and Audi keys, prosecutors claimed.

Surveillance video caught Muhammad and an accomplice exiting the accomplice’s house a few blocks from where the couple parked their Audi, Plofer said. It picked them up again, dressed in the same clothes, and walked toward the couple. Electronic surveillance bracelets of the accomplice ordered by the judge in connection with the pending gun charge tracked him to the location of the robbery. , said the provider.

A statement from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said surveillance staff noticed he had left his home and called him to go home, where he returned.

The alleged accomplice was not charged in connection with the robbery and did not participate in the shooting that followed, court documents say. A spokesperson for the Cook County State Attorney’s Office said police were still investigating. Cook County prosecutors have requested a hearing on the status of his release, alleging he violated the terms of his release earlier this month.

An electronic surveillance bracelet on the ankle transmits the GPS location of defendants who may be allowed to attend work, school, or other functions deemed necessary by a judge. The county’s electronic surveillance program faces challenges in dealing with gun violence in 2021, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot calling on judges to stop electronic surveillance release of people charged with violent crimes. It has sometimes been a political flashpoint by city leaders who are ignorant.

However, the Tribune’s analysis shows that Lightfoot and other police officials relied on flawed information when calling for crime-reduction policies that included imprisoning more people.

For Pernell Showers, it was the audacity of the robbery that struck him.

“Somehow you still did this given the fact that you were being tracked?” Parnell Showers said. “Are you unaware or afraid that it could be returned to you? It seems pointless.”

Surveillance video showed Muhammad and a second man driving an Audi. Surveillance video then captured Muhammad alone exiting an alleyway near the entrance of the other man’s house and walking toward the last spot in the Audi. stayed home.

Surveillance video from the Austin and Central Green Line stations caught the Audi moving down the street, and private surveillance video caught the Audi again at block 1400 on North Laurel Avenue.

A man sitting alone in Laurel’s car reported seeing the SUV stop. Muhammad got out, approached the man’s car and fired at him, the proponents claim.

Surveillance video then tracked the Audi on its way to Tracey Showers’ home.

Pernell Showers parks his car elsewhere to avoid the spot where his wife was killed, rather than parked behind his house. He said it’s hard for him to stay home, but he wants his family to have good memories of living there for 18 years.

He said the charges brought in the lawsuit brought some relief, but also anger. He has trouble understanding the randomness of the shooting, but he knows the cycle of violence in the city.

“I don’t know how something like this actually happens. Well, I know how it happens,” he said.

Tracy Showers loved his three grown children, he said. She delivered food to seniors at home during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She volunteered at a local food pantry.

“She was very generous with her time,” said her husband.

In June, they would have celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary.

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