STORY YOUMISSED
A quiet South Side neighborhood became the epicenter of an international horror story.
A local mother answered her phone on Tuesday and heard a voice that would shatter her world forever.
The unidentified caller spoke from Venezuela, thousands of miles away from the chilly streets of Chicago.
The stranger delivered a bone-chilling message: kidnappers held her 18-year-old son hostage.
The caller even gave her the exact address where the captors were keeping the young man.
Here is the grim reality of how that call ended.
Chicago police officers rushed to an apartment building in the 6800 block of South Perry Avenue around 9 p.m. Tuesday to conduct a welfare check.
They walked into a bloody crime scene inside the Greater Grand Crossing apartment.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office officially identified the victim as 18-year-old Cristian Jose Rojas Barrios.
Officers discovered the teenager lying face down in a bathtub inside the Perry Avenue apartment.
The killers had tied the teenager’s hands behind his back before executing him.
Paramedics pronounced the young man dead right there on the bathroom floor.
The medical examiner noted gunshot wounds to both the teenager’s chest and his leg.
An autopsy completed on Wednesday determined that Rojas Barrios died from multiple injuries sustained during an assault.
The medical examiner’s office officially ruled the teenager’s death a homicide.
Investigators searched the immediate area and recovered three nine-millimeter shell casings resting near the edge of the tub.
The nightmare actually began a day earlier in broad daylight.
The stranger on the phone told the mother that a group abducted her son around 3 p.m. on Monday.
The kidnappers snatched the teenager right near a public basketball court in the 7100 block of South King Drive.
That busy stretch of King Drive usually echoes with the sounds of bouncing basketballs and neighborhood chatter.
Instead, it became the launching pad for a transnational assassination.
Area 1 detectives immediately took over the case and are currently hunting for the killers.
The scene outside the Perry Avenue apartment told a story of deep community exhaustion.
Neighbors gathered behind the yellow police tape, staring at the flashing blue lights reflecting off the pavement.
Many residents expressed shock at the international connection linking a South Side basketball court to South America.
This brazen crime has left local parents wondering if their own children are safe at the local parks.
Safety experts urge residents to stay highly aware of their surroundings, even during daylight hours at neighborhood landmarks.
Police recommend that young people walk in pairs and avoid isolated areas around parks and recreation centers.
Community leaders are now calling for a stronger police presence around local basketball courts to deter predatory behavior.
Investigators have also declined to comment on whether the killers demanded a financial ransom during the phone call.
The motive behind this targeted kidnapping remains a complete mystery to the public.
Anyone with information regarding the abduction on King Drive should contact Area 1 detectives immediately.
The neighborhood hopes for quick answers before another family receives a terrifying call from across the globe.
