Neighbors were stunned and confused after a 35-year-old woman was found shot to death early Thursday morning in the Portage Park neighborhood on the Far Northwest Side in what police described as a domestic-related incident.
A man described in a police report as the woman’s partner was charged Friday night. Robert Pasco, 42, faces one felony charge of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and one misdemeanor charge of possessing a firearm without a valid firearm owner’s identification card, according to Chicago police. A murder charge was not filed in the case, but Pasco was expected to appear before a judge at a detention hearing on Saturday.
Police found the pregnant woman lying in a pool of blood in the bedroom of an apartment on the 5800 block of West Newport Avenue with a gunshot wound to the chest, according to a police report.
She was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and pronounced dead around 6:10 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. The woman’s identity hadn’t been released as of Friday evening.
At the hospital, doctors removed her unborn child who was thought to have a roughly 1-in-4 chance of survival, police said.
After he was taken into custody, Pasco told officers he and the woman had reached for a gun under a pillow on the bed at the same time and the gun went off, according to the report. The man said he owned the gun that was later found on the top shelf of a closet.
According to the police report, he and the woman were in a relationship and the child belonged to him.
Neighbors from their block said the couple had three other children — two daughters and a son — and that they’d see the man playing outside with them in the summer.
Cristina Garfias, who lived next door, described the man as a gentleman who had been friendly and kind to her following the death of her son over the summer.
“That’s why it’s a shock,” said Garfias, 50, adding that “we still don’t know exactly what happened.”
Other neighbors said the man was outgoing and occasionally attended 30th Ward events. Ald. Ruth Cruz, 30th, said she remembered seeing the victim with a child at a police roll call event over the summer.
Neighbor Janithza Guevara, 25, said she’d seen the man now in custody a few days before the shooting and that her niece showed him a snowman she’d made.
“He was so friendly and very social with us,” she said.
