Denise Huguelet, a retired special education teacher shot and killed on the Dan Ryan Expressway, was remembered by her children Monday as devoted to her family and her faith.
The 67-year-old Orland Park resident was returning from a White Sox game the evening of Aug. 17 when the shooting occurred. State police said they continue to investigate.
“Mom put everything she had into our family,” her son Michael Huguelet Jr. told mourners at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Orland Park.
“She dedicated all of her hours to teaching and loving us,” her son Kevin said.
Long involved in the St. Francis parish, Huguelet “lived her faith in so many ways,” said the Rev. Edward Upton, pastor emeritus of St. Francis.
“Always having faith was the foundation of her life,” Upton said.
Family vacations did not mean a break from church, Michael Huguelet said.
“She was a mom who could find a church anywhere the sun might shine,” he said. “Mom would find the Sunday Mass without fail.”
Huguelet worked for 24 years as a special-education teacher at Central Middle School in Evergreen Park, serving students with the most significant disabilities, according to Evergreen Park Elementary District 124.
Between teaching, her family and involvement in other community work, Huguelet possessed “boundless energy,” Kevin Huguelet said.
“Mom did more on a daily basis that most people do in a week,” he said.
Upton said that mourners were gathered in “gratitude for the beautiful life of Denise,” but that they also gathered with a sense of “anger, loss and confusion at this horrific situation.”
“These are days which are very difficult to understand, and I have no answer,” he said.
The priest told mourners that by following their faith it will “hopefully give us strength to assist in these difficult days.”
Upton described Huguelet as a woman of spirit and life who was “devoted to her family, attentive to her children, who were so central in her life.”
Survivors include 11 grandchildren, who the priest said “were so special to her.”
“It is not possible to adequately or fully capture her gifts,” he said.
Other survivors include her husband, Michael, who formerly worked as village prosecutor for Orland Park, as well as two daughters.
Huguelet and her husband were at an annual outing to a Sox game organized by the nonprofit group the Mulliganeers, an organization the couple had been a part of for some 25 years, according to Bob Sheehy, one of the founders.
State police said a trooper in the area heard gunshots on the Dan Ryan near 63rd Street at about 10 p.m., and state police air personnel responded. During an aerial search, troopers saw a car speeding away from the area.
Police followed the vehicle and took two people into custody, who were later released without charges.
State police are asking that anyone with information contact them at 847-294-4400 or by email at [email protected].