Charges were pending against a man after his estranged wife was strangled to death the day before Thanksgiving inside her Greater Grand Crossing home.
No charges had been announced by police as of Monday afternoon.
“She had a heart of gold,” Carolyn Jones’ older sister, Renee McDonald, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “She was kind, would give the shirt off her back. … She didn’t deserve that.”
The suspect, whom Carolyn Jones recently kicked out of her home, was seen on video surveillance entering and leaving her apartment building in the 6800 block of South Calumet Avenue several times in the early morning hours of Nov. 26, according to a Chicago police report and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
“At one point he is observed exiting while carrying bags, which he then puts into his vehicle,” the report states.
Jones’ son came home about 5:45 a.m., smelled natural gas and found a lit candle and a towel “shoved” under a rear door, according to the report. The suspect went back inside the apartment and told the son that Jones, 41, was unresponsive in her bedroom, the report said.
He and Jones’ two sons carried her to the suspect’s car. The suspect then dropped Jones off at University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead, police said.
A Thanksgiving autopsy determined Jones died of strangulation, and her death was ruled a homicide, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Jones was a U.S. Postal Service worker who grew up on the West Side near Garfield Park, according to her family members who described her as a loving and selfless person.
McDonald has been taking care of Jones’ sons, ages 19 and 23, who “are hurting right now,” McDonald said. “And they know we could do better by trying to move on, but it’s hard.”
“She was about her family first and foremost,” said Jones’ uncle, Sean Lanier. “And she actually was always the person that was most informative about everything. Anybody needed anything, she was the go-to for the family in multiple areas. Very well-spoken and one of the biggest hearts you’ll ever meet.”
The suspect told police that he had left for Memphis because he received threats from Jones’ family, according to the police report.
Area 1 detectives are investigating.