Jeromy Ellis/ Family Photo
BY EMILY BROSIOUS
Homicide Watch Chicago
Jeromy Ellis worked into the early morning to support his family, his fiance said.
The 34-year-old was on his way home from his job as a cook when he was shot to death May 1 in the Chatham neighborhood, said Katrina Holcomb, Ellis' fiance.
Police responded about 2:05 a.m. May 1 to a call of shots fired near East 81st Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue and found Ellis lying on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to the head, authorities said.
Ellis and Holcomb had been a couple for 13 years, and Ellis raised Holcomb’s daughter as his own, she said.
“He was a good man -- a family man,” Holcomb said. “He worked hard to support me and my daughter.”
Holcomb said she usually picked Ellis up from work, but not last Thursday. Instead, Ellis was shot while walking from the bus stop -- probably listening to music on his headphones.
Ellis, of the 7600 block of South Drexel Avenue, was dead at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
“It’s weighing heavy on me,” Holcomb said. “I just keep thinking if he had called me to pick him up this wouldn’t have happened.”
Holcomb said Ellis was not a gang member and did not start trouble. He enjoyed spending free time relaxing at home and playing basketball video games on Xbox.
Ellis' family wants justice for this senseless death, Holcomb said.
“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Holcomb said. “They got the wrong guy. He didn’t deserve this.”
Nobody has been charged for the murder. Holcomb is asking anyone with information about this murder to come forward.
Area South detectives are investigating.