Prosecutors charged an Englewood man Sunday with beating a woman to death in the abandoned home where she and her teenage son lived earlier this month.
Antwon Chambers met Terryn Winters, 34, a few weeks before he killed her, Assistant Prosecutor Eugene Wood said. Chambers, 32, was living in an Englewood halfway house just blocks from Winters and her son after a 12-year prison sentence for criminal sexual assault. State prison records show he was released on parole in March. Chambers is also listed on the Illinois State Police sex offender registry.
Winters’ son, Daryn Stanton, 14, was the first to call for help Dec. 8 when he couldn’t find his mother in the vacant house where they lived in the 7000 block from South Normal Boulevard. . Police found Winters dead in the home’s attic the next day.
On Sunday afternoon, Daryn sat wedged between his uncle and aunt, hands on his knees, as a prosecutor read the murder charges against Chambers during his first appearance at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.
As Wood spoke, Winters’ twin brother wrapped his arm around Daryn and placed a hand on his head in the back row of bond court.
Police found a pipe wrench next to Winters’ body, a gray hat and blood spatter in his bedroom, Wood said. Chambers appeared on surveillance footage from nearby buildings wearing the hat as he entered the house with Winters on the morning of Dec. 8, then left alone and without the hat.
Wood said police found Winters’ phone in a nearby alley two days after her death. The phone contained two photos of her body, a $7 cash transfer from Winters to Chambers and Chambers’ contact information had been deleted, he said.
Wood said Winters’ phone was found with a purple case. On Thursday, the day police arrested Chambers, Daryn was staring at his new phone, face down on the table in his uncle’s Near South Side apartment. He had been given a purple case to look like Winters, he said.
He was frank about what he needed at that moment: “My mother,” he said. “I feel like I don’t really feel the true extent of my emotions, like I’ve dissociated myself from them.”
Winters was kind and always laughing, he said. She had a short temper, especially “if one behaved pretentiously”, and liked multi-colored hair, eyelashes and makeup. She usually wore a purple cross around her neck. She was a morning person. Daryn said they went almost everywhere together, even though he was “more of a homebody” than her.
He estimated they stayed in the abandoned house for about three months after Winters lost his job. They had to be careful that parts of the house wouldn’t collapse, especially when it rained. They washed and charged their phones at friends’ houses, his son said.
Winters had gathered the necessary documents to apply for an apartment in Indiana, he said. He couldn’t wait to get out of there but wasn’t worried about their safety.
Winters’ older sister, Tanika Jackson, who also attended the hearing with her brother and his wife, was concerned. Winters had always “butted heads with people,” but Jackson, 45, worried that they would both spend the winter in Chicago in the abandoned building.
“I begged her to come stay with us,” she said. “She said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ We are fine.
Jackson plans to take Daryn, who is in the middle of eighth grade and wants to be a veterinarian, to live with her in Moline. Daryn said that plan suited him.
“I don’t want to be in Chicago anymore,” he said. “Bad memories suppress good memories.”
Judge Shauna Boliker on Sunday ordered Chambers detained pending trial, citing “the brutality of the circumstances” and the short time between Winters’ meeting with Chambers and his death. Chambers is next scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
Daryn pulled his hood up as he left bond court. He walked separately, his head bowed, while his family spoke quietly with a victim witness. His aunt reached out and put her arms around him. He kept his hood on.
