Coroner identifies 2 killed at Joliet Halloween party

JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — A coroner on Monday identified a young man and woman who died in a shooting at a suburban Chicago Halloween party that injured more than a dozen other people.

Will County Coroner Laurie Summers said Holly Matthews and Jonathan Ceballos, both 22, were fatally shot early Sunday at the party in Joliet, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.

Police were seeking tips from the public in finding two suspected shooters who fled from the scene and were also seeking witnesses or anyone who may have video or photographs from the party.

Summers said her office was performing autopsies Monday and planned to release the results later in the day, The (Joliet) Herald-News reported.^[1]

Ceballos was from Joliet and Matthews was from nearby Shorewood, and they were among more than 200 people at the party, the Chicago Tribune reported.^[2]

"She was just a young girl in a costume for a Halloween party. Lost her life for no reason. Absolutely no reason," Holly Matthews' father, Stephen Matthews, told WLS-TV.^[3]

The party was initially intended for a group of about 50 family members and friends, relatives of the hosts said. But social media posts promoting the party drew hundreds from surrounding communities, according to a news release from the Will County sheriff's office.

Those attending ranged in age from their teens to mid-20s, The Herald-News reported.

The sheriff's office said witnesses indicated that two people fired shots from a porch overlooking the crowd in a home's backyard.

Alicia Fabbre, a freelance reporter whose report was published in the Chicago Tribune, talked to a partygoer who said he noticed people on the balcony flashing gang signs toward a specific group located in the backyard near the DJ booth.^[2:1] That witness said that when the group near the DJ booth began approaching the balcony, shots were fired.

The spray of bullets wounded 10 people, while others were hospitalized for injuries suffered when they were trampled in the rush to get away, police said.

"As soon as they started shooting, people just started running," said Will County Sheriff's Deputy Chief Dan Jungles. He noted that deputies recovered several personal items such as car keys, cellphones and purses that were left behind.

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