Although the hunt for a man suspected in six murders ended Sunday morning in a South Side motel room, where the 18-year-old allegedly shot himself, police were searching for another man in connection with the first four slayings.
Immanuel Phillips took his own life with a 9 mm handgun, police said, after a nearly seven-hour standoff with officers. They surrounded the Cottage Inn, 8135 S. Cottage Grove Ave., after receiving a tip that the suspect was in a second-floor room rented for him by a woman.
The apparent suicide ended an anxious three-day hunt for Phillips, which began Thursday after police found the body of his father, Roosevelt Phillips, in their Chatham home, next door to the house where four people were slain after a New Year’s party last month.
The elder Phillips, who had been shot, was found with a note left that linked his son to the slaying, police said.
Phillips also fatally shot a woman and critically wounded her boyfriend on the North Side Friday night, according to police.
Family members say they were baffled by Immanuel Phillips’ actions. Police said earlier they would release information about the probable motives for the murders, but then backed off when they announced Sunday afternoon that they were looking for an accomplice.
Police believe the other man was involved in the killings of Prescott Perry, 48; Sarah Perry, 18; her son Ronald Ryals, 2; and his father, Ronald Ryals Jr., 21. The bodies of the four, and a pet dog, were discovered Jan. 3 inside Prescott Perry’s house, next door to the Phillips home, in the 8000 block of South Michigan Avenue.
Police declined to release any information about the suspect.
Convicted on weapons charge
Phillips had been convicted of a weapons charge in 2002 and was sentenced to a year of probation. He also was charged with possession of marijuana in 2002, but the charges were dropped. Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th), who knows Phillips’ mother, said that Sherrie Phillips had sought police help in recent years after her son became involved with gangs.
Police picked up two women for questioning, including a woman who motel employees said drove Phillips to the motel and then paid $34 for eight hours in the room. Police also impounded a Plymouth Voyager, said a brother of one of the women.
Police had been in contact with Phillips during the night via telephone, but were unable to persuade him to surrender.
As armored officers clustered around Room 213 of the motel at 7:30 a.m. Sunday, they heard a single pop of a gun from inside the room.
After hearing the gunshot, police inserted a video camera probe into the room. They then threw in a small concussion grenade to stun anyone inside.
Police Supt. Terry Hillard said police officers did not fire their guns.
Officers found Phillips, who was wearing body armor, lying on the floor. He had “numerous ammunition rounds in his pockets,” Hillard said. Police recovered a 9 mm handgun but not the semiautomatic Uzi assault rifle they believed he had stolen from the home of the first murder victims.
Phillips, who was still alive, was carted out on a chair by paramedics at about 7:40 a.m. He was later pronounced dead at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
A motel clerk said she became suspicious immediately when a beige-colored vehicle drove into the parking lot at 12:23 a.m. Sunday.
“It was just instinctive,” motel clerk Tanya Turner said of her immediate misgivings.
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When the woman and Phillips pulled in, she drove all the way to the end of the parking lot, far past the motel office, Turner said. The woman then walked across the parking lot, registered for the room and paid $34. The woman then drove the mini-van, which Turner described as an SUV, to the other end of the parking lot and let Phillips out.
`It was not normal’
Phillips never entered the motel office, Turner said. He went to the second-floor room but had trouble opening the door and was helped by the security guard on duty, she said.
“It was not normal, the way they came in,” Turner said.
While the guard helped him with the key, Phillips kept his head down and kept his face obscured, Turner said.
Police said they received a tip “from the hotel” that Phillips had checked in. Turner, who said she had not called police, said Phillips was in the room only about 15 minutes when she saw police officers in the parking lot, pulling people aside to evacuate the area.
When police came into the office they asked her to point out Room 213, and then quickly ushered her to a bus where other people evacuated from the motel were being kept warm during the ensuing standoff.
Women questioned
The woman who paid for the motel room as well as a female friend were picked up for questioning later in the 500 block of East 89th Place, at the address which she registered with the motel, said a man at the house. Pullman Area detectives declined to comment on the questioning of the two women Sunday.
In the Chatham neighborhood, where the Phillips family had lived next door to the first four victims, people were devastated by the news that a neighbor might have been responsible for the murders.
At the Phillips home, family members put up a sign asking to be left alone to grieve in private. Sherrie Phillips had been instrumental in efforts to soothe the community’s fears in the wake of the quadruple murder last month.
“Sherrie has gone through the Perry family funeral, the Ryals family funeral and now she has to bury her husband and son and come to grips with the demons plaguing her son. It’s just tragic,” said Rev. Cheryl Stewart Pero, pastor of St. James Evangelical Church, located just down the block from the two families’ homes.
“She was the person who was able to communicate to us what the families needed,” Pero said. “Can you imagine how she must feel, after being the conduit between the families? She must be devastated.”
After fearing for their safety for more than a month, some people were relieved to hear the case was nearing conclusion.
“I’m sorry it ended this way, but it is a relief. I stayed at different places once or twice a week. I got a couple of extra locks for the doors,” said Betty McCants, 24, who lives in the same block as the Phillips and Perry families. “I think a person who would shoot a 2-year-old is vicious, and to shoot your father–he must have lost his mind.”
Yolande Bourgeois, a first cousin of Prescott Perry, said she moved out of Chatham to the South Loop several years ago but has remained close with both families.
“I grew up with Roosevelt … I’ve known Immanuel all my life,” Bourgeois said. “This is the most bizarre thing.”
Bourgeois said Roosevelt Phillips was strict with his son, making sure he made it to school in the morning at Jones College Prep High School in the Loop.