ENGLEWOOD — Kaylyn Pryor should still be here, the model's friends said at her visitation Friday.
Pryor, who was 20 years old and lived in Evanston, had just signed a contract with Factor Modeling. She had won the 2015 Mario Tricoci "Mario, Make Me a Model" competition. She had been named a "Person to Watch" by Splash magazine. After years of hard work, her friends said, Pryor had achieved major success.
But, hours after signing the modeling contract, Pryor was shot and killed while visiting family in Englewood on Nov. 2.
"I don't understand how come this happened to her," said Mekita Purkett, Pryor's friend and a fellow model, as she stood outside a funeral home in Englewood for Pryor's visitation Friday evening. "She achieved what we all wanted ... ."
Pryor had "the look," Purkett said, and she was a star when it came to photography. Purkett helped Pryor perfect her walk for the runway.
"She was so silly," Purkett said. "Really goofy."
Others said the same: Pryor was creative and funny, said her friend and godsister, Kyia Mills. The two would get their hair done together and then go out to breakfast about once a month, Mills said. Modeling was "No. 1" for Pryor, Mills said.
"She made a joke out of everything," Mills said, and she tried everything creative. "Everything you could name, even if she thought she couldn't [do it] she'd still try."
No one has been charged in Pryor's death, though there is a reward offered to anyone with information about the shooting.
Th gun violence that claimed Pryor's life is the same that led to Purkett's family moving to the suburbs in the '90s, she said. And Mills said she doesn't think it will end — both women said they think it is getting worse.
"She should still be here," Purkett said.
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