Paul Pyron / Photo from Facebook
BY SUSAN DU
Homicide Watch Chicago
More than 50 people gathered Wednesday night to light candles in remembrance of Paul Pyron, an aspiring rapper shot dead during a Tuesday night carjacking in the Ashburn neighborhood.
Pyron, 21, was driving a black Ford Expedition in the 2300 block of West 80th Street when two people approached about 10:25 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said. At least one person shot Pyron in the chest then drove off in the SUV. Pyron died later that night at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
"I know bad kids. I know kids who don't have any aspirations or don't believe in anything, disrespectful, and I never got that from," said longtime family friend Larita Harvey. "I know a lot of people who have passed away that I can say, 'Yeah, they were just horrible.' Every time I saw him, he had the biggest smile for me."
Court records indicate Pyron pleaded guilty to a 2014 burglary charge and was sentenced to probation.
Harvey's son, Kevin Harvey, remembered his childhood best friend as a "really funny dude" who was always telling jokes. The friends enjoyed video games and playing baseball in the yard, he said.
Pyron was always mature for his age and self sufficiency was a core feature of his personality, Kevin Harvey said.
"PJ never asked me for anything, even though I was so close to him," Kevin Harvey said. "Him having that mindset that 'I'm not gonna depend on anyone else to succeed,' that independent factor he had about him, whatever I gotta do to survive, that was great about him."
Pyron, the youngest of three brothers, would often have joint childhood birthday parties with Kevin Harvey, who was almost exactly three years older, Kevin Harvey said.
Larita Harvey said she would often come home and find the friends engaged in bizarre pranks -- like playing dead as she walked through the door.
"They're all laying across the floor, the couches," Larita Harvey recalled. "I was like, 'Why would you do that?' and I started screaming at them and they just all broke out laughing. He was quite the jokester."
When Pyron was 6 years old, Kevin Harvey accidentally hit him in the eye with a plastic baseball bat, he said. Pyron screamed and cried but he didn't get angry.
"That's huge, to have that understanding at that age, because if it was the other way around, I probably would have tried to fight him," Kevin Harvey said. "PJ was not the type to hurt people. He was like a brother to me."
When the friends got older, Pyron and Kevin Harvey often drank together in secret at Larita Harvey's house and would get in trouble if she came home earlier than expected, Kevin Harvey said.
Most of the time the friends were just outside wandering around the neighborhood -- talking and play fighting with the girls on the block, he said.
"PJ, he had more game than me," Kevin Harvey said of Pyron's ability to approach women. "A lot of men out here are really disrespectful to women. With him, he wasn't like that. You see all these men calling women bitches and hoes, and he's actually a really respectful dude toward girls."
On Wednesday, family and friends gathered to light candles in remembrance Pyron. Pyron still lived with his mother, who appeared to be "in a lot of pain" when she attended the vigil, Larita Harvey said.
"I can't even think what it would be like ... even imagining it was wrong," Larita Harvey said. "You could tell she was suffering."