Teen in custody for death of Kaylah Love, girl brutally murdered on West Side, Chicago police sources say

By Sara Tenenbaum, Marissa Perlman, Andrew Ramos

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — A teen has been taken into custody for the brutal murder of a 16-year-old girl on Chicago’s West Side, police sources said.

According to the Chicago police sources, a 15-year-old boy is in custody Monday morning. Official charges are pending. The boy is due to appear in juvenile court Monday afternoon.

Kaylah Love was last seen on Sunday, March 16, when she left to pick up some food at a McDonald’s in Lawndale. Her family said she never returned home. Her body was found the next evening, stabbed several times and beaten to death, in Horan Park in the city’s East Garfield Park neighborhood.

The circumstances around the teen’s death, which the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office ruled a homicide, have sparked many questions, including who Love was spotted with at the park Sunday evening that led to a 911 call.

Police dispatch audio from Monday when Love was found suggests the caller witnessed an apparent attack.

“She called the police yesterday regarding a female being beaten by a male,” a dispatcher is heard saying. “She just walked by the same location and she is the same female — deceased.”

Love’s family said they learned through detectives that when Chicago police officers initially responded to the scene Sunday, they did not get out of their car. They were told it was nearly 24 hours before police returned to the scene.

“She could’ve been dead or dying when they pulled up, and there may have been an opportunity to save her life,” said her father Robert Love.

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