Garfield Park woman charged with murder of 87-year-old in Bronzeville senior complex

Update: According to Cook County prosecutors, the 87-year-old Mae Brown was Gaines' mother. Brown lived at the facility for 8 years and the two had recently had an argument over social security payments.

CHICAGO - A Garfield Park woman was charged with murder nearly a week after an 87-year-old woman was found dead in a senior living facility apartment in the Bronzeville neighborhood.^[1]

Chicago Police charged Shearly Gaines, 69, of the 200 block of N. Albany in the Garfield Park neighbrhood on the city's west side, with one felony count of first-degree murder.

Last Saturday, Mae Brown, 87, was found dead in her wheelchair in her Lincoln Perry Apartment on the 3200 block of S. Prairie Avenue in the Bronzeville neighborhood, one of the Chicago Housing Authority's Senior Living Public Housing Developments. An autopsy showed that Ms. Brown suffered multiple injuries from an assault and the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office ruled her death a homicide.

Gaines was reportedly arrested on Wednesday by Chicago Police and officially charged with murder late Thursday evening.

It's unclear how or if the offender and the victim know each other, but Gaines is due in bond court on Friday.

A neighbor, Dorothy Allison, said Brown was a nice person and her death doesn't make sense.

“I just feel so horrible. I feel bad, sad. She didn’t get a chance to enjoy the rest of her life. And for somebody to kill her and hurt her like that, they don’t make sense to me,” Allison told WLS-TV.

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