Less than two months after her death, Chloe Bell’s friends say they miss her voice.
Her goofiness, big personality, drive and determination were all embodied by it, a few of her friends said.
A student at the Hammond Area Career Center, Bell, 17, of Hammond, was shot to death from behind her front door on July 19.
Almost immediately, the memory of her voice began to fade, said friend Jaelyn Bracey, 17. When she was ready, a cousin sent a voicemail Bell had left.
“People say that (the) voice is hard to remember,” Bracey said. Now she has it, “just to remember how she sounds, and that helps a lot.”
‘Mom of the group’
Her maturity and instinct to help others made Bell like the “mom of the group,” said friend Caroline Rivera, 17.
After Rivera moved to Illinois, Bell, Bracey and Jo’niqua Turner became so close, they would often have to answer to teachers if Bell wasn’t in school that day. They reserved four-chair lunch tables for themselves.
“We would just kick out the other chair,” Bracey said.
Bell was a clotheshorse and would often exchange her clothes with finds in their closets without returning it, Bracey said. They still have magazines and makeup tips she gave them.
For her senior year, they are working to get Bell named an honorary prom queen, they said.
They are hoping to decorate Bell’s empty chair for their high school graduation in June. The School City of Hammond declined to make staff available for this story.
At the time of her death, Bell planned to study criminal justice and become a criminal defense lawyer, her friends said.
She was inspired after the brother of someone close to her was killed by gun violence, Turner said.
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Stunned by her death, all three want to keep Bell’s memory alive by establishing a memorial locker and keeping pink — Bell’s favorite color — physically around them.
In the weeks after Bell’s death, Bracey got a heart-shaped tattoo inscribed on her forearm: “In my heart is where I’ll keep you. For ever Chloe.” Rivera also plans to get a tattoo in Bell’s memory.
“I know certain things like this die down,” said Turner, 17. “Unsolved cases disappear, people forget about it. I don’t want her mom to feel that way about it.”
Tragic night
News of Bell’s shooting on July 19 spread fast through Facebook and other social media. Turner said a friend living nearby called her after she heard the shots.
“I had hung up from her and I was like, ‘I was going to call Chloe to make sure she was OK,'” Turner said, who also lived near Bell.
“I just ran through the parking lot,” she said. “And by the time I got to the parking lot, the ambulance was there.”
Officers on scene found Bell inside the home with multiple gunshot wounds, Hammond Police spokesman Lt. Steve Kellogg said. She was transported to Community Hospital in Munster, where she was pronounced dead, according to the Lake County coroner’s office. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Hammond investigators said they believed shootings in the area two days before were connected with the one that left Bell dead.
Investigators “do not believe Chloe Bell was the intended target of the July 19 shooting, but instead possibly a family member who resides there,” Hammond police told the Post-Tribune in July.
The case is ongoing and investigators “are still working diligently looking for Chloe’s killer,” Kellogg said in an email.
Coping with loss
Grappling with Bell’s death, all three said it was the first time someone they knew well had been killed by gun violence.
Days before, Bell was at her house, Bracey said. Turner still keeps Bell’s messages from late June on her phone.
“I think that’s what really hit me so hard,” Turner said. “Because, I had people that got killed by gun violence, but I was a baby or I didn’t know what was going on.
“So, to be 17, and know somebody that got killed from gun violence, I think that really affected me.”
It’s affected their sense of safety and left them with questions of why the shooter didn’t listen who was behind the door, they agreed.
“It’s really frightening,” said Bracey. “That could have been anyone. It could have been any of us.”
Social media has been a therapeutic way to share her memory when it was too painful to talk about her out loud, Turner said.
Returning to school, Turner said they are trying to recapture some normalcy.
“The hardest thing was the funeral,” Bracey said. “That was the final deal. I was like, ‘This is real.’ I hesitated to go inside the ceremony. It was really hard.”
“With Chloe, every Friday, she would say, ‘Bye,’ or something like that, and I would say, ‘See you later.'”
“At the funeral, I told my friends it was a ‘See you later,'” she said. “I don’t ever tell my friends or family goodbye. Even after classes.
“I feel like a goodbye is, you’ll never see them again. A ‘See you later’ is … I used to tell Chloe that every weekend,” she said. “I never feel like it was a goodbye.”
*Anyone with information on Bell’s case is asked to call Detective Sgt. Adam Clark at 219-852-2987 or Detective Sgt. Shawn Ford at 219-852-2998.
Twitter @meredithcolias
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