One of the most harrowing crimes in the Chicago area – the unsolved murders of five women at a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park 18 years ago – is the topic of a new documentary.
Who Killed These Women? is directed and produced by Charlie Minn, who specializes in crime-related documentaries.
The murderer has never been found, seemingly vanishing into thin air on Feb. 2, 2008, a cold Saturday in Tinley Park. No one has been arrested or charged.
“That’s the main reason why (I made this). It’s unsolved,” said Minn, who said he has wanted to make the documentary for 10 years.
He reached out to the Tinley Park Police Department then. They declined to participate, he said.
Minn “of course” heard about the murders, which were nationwide news.
Jennifer Bishop, 34, of South Bend; Carrie Chiuso, 33 of Frankfort; store manager Rhoda McFarland, 42, of Joliet; Sarah Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; and Connie Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor, were shot to death that day.
The biggest challenge he faced, said Minn, was not having cooperation from the police.
“None,” he said. “You’d think they’d be a little more helpful, but they’re not.”
A former producer with America’s Most Wanted, Minn has loads of experience dealing with crimes, be they unsolved or not.
“I feel I’m in a good place in my career now because of my experience,” he said.
He did receive cooperation from families of the deceased, former Chicago police detectives along with “former Lane Bryant employees, one of whom knew the lone survivor.”
“We also interviewed the first four paramedics on the scene. So, we certainly have enough,” he said in a phone interview on Feb. 5.
To learn more about the documentary and where you can see it, visit www.thetinley5.com.
The documentary opens on Friday, Feb. 13, at AMC River East 21 in Chicago, AMC Crestwood 18, Marcus Orland Park and AMC New Lenox 14.
It took Minn four months to produce the movie.
Asked how the shooter escaped, Minn replied, “Unbelievable. I think the police missed him by seconds. I think he went out the back door rather than the front. Had he gone through the front door, he would’ve run into the police.”
Police response was fast, he said. Police were on the scene within minutes after a 9-1-1 call was received at 10:44 a.m. placed by McFarland from her cell phone.
“(The police were there) within a minute or two because they happened to be across the parking lot at the Target responding to another call.
“Another thing that’s important to know is when the 9-1-1 call came in, it was re-routed and that might have lost some precious seconds that could be the difference between an arrest and no arrest,” Minn said.
Interstate 80, located minutes from the store, “would have been a great getaway,” he said.
“He could be anywhere,” MInn said of the killer. “It’s the largest unsolved mass shooting in modern day America.”
Minn said residents of Tinley Park “should challenge their police department for not solving this. … We just can’t be saying the same thing every anniversary.”
Before his death from heart surgery complications in 2011, Tinley Park Police Chief Mike O’Connell discussed the murders with a former reporter for the Daily Southtown.
O’Connell, 60 when he passed, said that the Lane Bryant murders were the first thing he thought of each morning and the last thing he thought of each night.
Minn knows the police have done a lot of work on the investigation: “They have spent over $1 million chasing down over 7,000 leads.”
He’s surprised none of those leads panned out.
“I don’t know how deeply they’re looking at it now.. I really don’t. I know early on, you tend to go all out, different agencies helping you those first six months to a year. After 18 years, I can’t imagine where they are with this thing.”
He does not think the killer knew any of the women, as some have speculated.
“Was somebody targeted? I would say ‘no’ because it took 40 minutes. If you see your target, you try to get rid of that person and get out. Why did it last 40 minutes?
“Maybe the target didn’t show up that day. Maybe he was waiting for the target. Maybe he knew there were no (security) cameras in there and that’s why he did it. Or maybe we’re just talking about a deranged individual and when someone is deranged, you can’t explain their actions.”