Baby delivered after pregnant woman fatally shot in Jeffery Manor

A newborn was in critical condition Tuesday afternoon after the baby’s pregnant mother was gunned down on her South Side porch.

The shooting occurred early Tuesday in the 2100 block of East 95^th Place, in a leafy neighborhood of brick Georgian-style homes on the South Side. The woman, identified as Stacey Jones, 35, was found lying unresponsive with two gunshots in her back, Chicago police said.

Jones was taken to the University of Chicago Medial Center in critical condition but later died, police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. Jones was eight months pregnant, and doctors were able to deliver the baby, who was being cared for at Comer Children’s Hospital, police said.

Jones was a probation officer with the adult probation department, Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans said in a memo to court employees.

“Our thoughts go out to her family, colleagues and friends at this difficult time,” Evans said.

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Police had no one in custody Tuesday afternoon, and the case remained under investigation. Police said the shooting didn’t appear to be random.

Several neighbors reported hearing three gunshots, including Allen Jones, who lives next door and is not related to the victim. Jones said he was in bed when he heard the crackle of gunfire.

“When you hear gunshots, you don’t go to the window,” he said.

He said the woman had been his next door neighbor for about a year and she had two grade-school children who liked to play on the small patch of grass out front. On Tuesday afternoon, a child’s scooter and a Super Soaker squirt gun lay amid the fallen leaves.

Theother Sykes, another neighbor, said his grandson sometimes played with the woman’s children. Sykes also said he and other neighbors have had to call the police on occasion because of arguments that erupted between a man staying in Stacey Jones’ home and another woman who would come to the home. Every other week during the past summer, the other woman would drive up to the home and begin yelling for the man to come out, Sykes said.

“If he didn’t respond, she would knock on the door to get him to come out,” Sykes said, noting the episodes stopped in August.

A racial slur and the letters “KKK” had been spray-painted in white on the side of Stacey Jones’ home, but it was unclear how long they had been there. One neighbor said Tuesday he’d not seen them until a reporter pointed them out. The neighborhood’s regular mail career said she’d not seen the graffiti before either.

Police said there was no indication that race was a factor in Stacey Jones’ killing.

“At this time, based on information and additional evidence gathered by detectives, we do not believe this crime was racially motivated or a random act,” CPD spokesman Thomas Ahern said.