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.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS