Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson’s seven-year-old nephew was found dead in the back of a sport utility vehicle (SUV), ending a frantic search that began after the shooting deaths of her mother and brother three days earlier.
The singer and actress was among seven family members and close friends who cried and held hands as they identified Julian King’s body from a live image on a television screen at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office on Monday afternoon.
Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said the boy, like his grandmother and uncle, had been shot. The medical examiner’s office planned an autopsy yesterday.
PHOTO: AFP
Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis said a motive remained unclear on Monday but added: “It wasn’t a case of a stranger-type homicide.”
Police have characterized the slayings as “domestic related” and authorities have been questioning the boy’s estranged stepfather, who is being held in state custody on a parole violation. No one has been charged in the slayings.
Julian’s body was found on Monday morning in the rear seat of the vehicle, which was parked in a neighborhood about 16km from the home he shared with the other victims.
Hudson had offered US$100,000 on Sunday for information leading to the safe return of her nephew, the son of her sister, Julia Hudson.
Hudson’s publicist did not immediately return calls and e-mail messages on Monday.
“Miss Hudson wanted to request privacy,” Cook County spokesman Sean Howard said after the family left the medical examiner’s office. “This is a very trying time for her and her family.”
Hudson’s aunt, Dorothy Hudson, said the Chicago funeral home she owns with her husband will handle arrangements for the family, but details were pending.
“We’re just sad. We’re going through this stage where we’re just sad and in shock,” Dorothy Hudson said.
An alert issued by police earlier had listed William Balfour, the estranged husband of Julia Hudson, as a suspect in a “double homicide investigation.” He is not the boy’s father and has not been charged in the slayings.
Weis said on Monday that Balfour “remains a person of interest.”
The chief said he was confident that with two crime scenes, investigators would find important clues.
Balfour, 27, was taken into custody for questioning on Friday after the bodies of Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson, and brother, Jason Hudson, were found.
On Sunday, Balfour was transferred to the Illinois Department of Corrections, where a spokeswoman declined on Monday to discuss his parole violation.
Corrections records show Balfour spent nearly seven years in prison for attempted murder, vehicular hijacking and possessing a stolen vehicle. He was expected to remain in state custody until the Illinois Prisoner Review Board looked at his case.
Balfour’s mother said Hudson’s mother kicked Balfour out of the family home last winter. She denied her son had anything to do with the killings.
It was unclear whether Balfour had an attorney.
Lynette Louden, 47, said she called police about the SUV across the street from her home on Chicago’s West Side after her family’s chihuahua started barking at it early on Monday. Some neighbors said they hadn’t seen the vehicle before Monday, but Louden said it had been there since at least Saturday.
“I only hoped the body wasn’t in there,” she said. “When they said that it was, I cried.”
Weis said police were waiting for the autopsy to determine how long the boy had been dead, but estimated the vehicle was parked on the street “a couple of days.”
When asked how officers could have missed the SUV during their massive search, Weis said that Chicago is a big city and that the vehicle was “several miles away from the first crime scene.”
Hudson, who won an Academy Award last year for her role in Dreamgirls, returned to Chicago to be with her family during the weekend.
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