CHICAGO — Darryl Owens Jr. had plans of moving out of Chicago to finally be able to fully support his four sons.
The 34-year-old East Chatham resident was searching for jobs and lining up opportunities for his move to Minnesota with his sister when he was shot dead Monday outside his childhood home, his family said.
"He was trying to move to Minnesota to have a better life, you know," his sister, Natasha Harvey, said Tuesday morning.
"He was going back to school, trying to move around from the neighborhood. It's so crazy how things work out," Harvey said.
Owens had moved from the neighborhood to "start a new life," but without a job and four sons between the ages of 5 and 13, always found himself coming back.
Owens knew he wanted to escape the neighborhood he called home for 25 years, Harvey said.
Around 5:35 p.m., Owens was walking in the 800 block of East 87th Place when a man emerged from the gangway and shot him in his stomach and left leg, Chicago Police said.
Harvey was in her home when she heard two loud gunshots outside. Her first reaction was to head for her kitchen, away from the big glass windows in the front of her home. When she heard a third gunshot she waited a moment before peeking out those big windows and seeing her younger brother sitting in the street, she said.
"I came out of the house like 'What the f--- happened.' There wasn't many people out there," she said, adding that she didn't hear a car drive away or tires screech and assumed the shooter must've been on foot.
By the time she made it to her brother, about two houses away, he was lying in the middle of the street, she said.
"He never said anything, but was fading in and out. We kept slapping him in the face to get him to stay awake," Harvey said.
"When the ambulance came, they were working on him for 25 minutes, so I knew it wasn't good. It wasn't until [the emergency medical technician] turned him over that I could see he was shot in his stomach," she said.
The EMT told Harvey her brother was hit in a main artery and lost a lot of blood, she said.
Owens, who lived in the 7300 block of North Damen Avenue in Rogers Park, was pronounced dead at 11:50 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
Owens was well-known and well-liked around the neighborhood, where he would help neighbors with chores growing up, his sister said.
He was excited about taking his oldest son to Washington, D.C. in his eighth-grade graduation year, she said.
"He took care of his kids, and that was part of the reason to get to Minnesota. That was also part of the reason he hadn't left sooner," Harvey said.
No one was in custody for the shooting.
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