A Sauk Village teenager who died in a fire may have been a murder victim, police said Tuesday.
But there were many more questions than answers surrounding the death of 17-year-old Jarrell Edwards, a member of the sophomore basketball team last semester at Bloom Trail High School. The teen apparently was doused by gasoline in his bedroom early Sunday and set afire.
”For now, we`re calling this an arson and a suspicious death,” said Sauk Village Police Chief Grant Selvey.
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Open questions in the investigation included if the cuts on Edwards` body and a scarf tied around his face were related to his death.
According to police, Edwards` parents were not at home at the time of the blaze. His mother, Janice, 36, reportedly was visiting a relative in Louisiana. The boy`s father, Rochester Rogers, 42, was working, police said.
Although Dr. Yuksel Konakci of the Cook County medical examiner`s office said there was a possibility of suicide, friends of the youth flatly denied that Edwards was despondent.
”I`m a 100 percent sure it was not a suicide,” said Jabari Henderson, one of Edward`s close friends. ” He was a happy person and had a lot of friends.”
Henderson said the two talked on the telephone around midnight when Edwards said he was going to stop by with some friends. However, when he didn`t show up by 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Henderson said he went to bed.
”If he was in trouble, he would have told me,” Henderson said. ”He told me everything.”
The last phone call was just hours before firefighters were called to the two-story home at 21608 Jeffery Ave.
Inside the bedroom, investigators found an empty two-gallon gasoline can. State fire officials have joined in the investigation.