Tinley Park mystery spotlighted
Podcast on Lane Bryant killings hopes to draw new attention, possible closure
More than 14 years after five women were slain inside a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park, two friends hope their podcast might bring renewed attention to the case and, more importantly, a resolution.
Ashlee Tramutolo and Kristin Stewart launched their “Thousand Miles of True Crime” podcast toward the end of last year, and segments have focused on unsolved crimes such as the killing of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey in December 1996 in her Colorado home.
The “thousand miles” refers to the distance separating Tramutolo, who lives in Crestwood, and Stewart, who moved from the Chicago area to Texas to be closer to family.
Their podcast notes that “they take turns examining the darker side of humanity.”
The former co-workers said they “are obsessed with true crime,” and Stewart and Tramutolo said they believe there is information somebody has that could crack the Lane Bryant case.
“Somebody knows who that guy is,” Tramutolo said in an interview Wednesday.
“With $100,000 on the line somebody is going to talk.”
She is referring to the reward money offered and still unclaimed, much of it put up by the parent company of Lane Bryant, that was hoped would pry loose key information that would lead to an arrest and conviction.
Shortly after the Lane Bryant store opened that morning, a man posing as a delivery driver entered the store in what was an apparent robbery.
After spending several minutes in the store he shot and killed five women and wounded a sixth, who survived and was able to provide police with a description of the assailant.
Killed were 42-year-old store manager Rhoda McFarland of Joliet; Jennifer Bishop, 34, of South Bend, Indiana; Sarah Szafranski, 22, of Oak Forest; Connie Woolfolk, 37, of Flossmoor; and Carrie Hudek Chiuso, 33, of Frankfort.
In the April 12 podcast, available on several platforms including YouTube, Tramutolo and Stewart delve into the backgrounds of the victims, and speculate about the possible motive of the killer.
Tramutolo said she believes more attention being drawn to the case will help in bringing the killer to justice.
“It should be able to be solved,” she said. “I think it needs more attention and I think that’s what probably at this point going to help get it solved.”
She and Stewart said they question whether the assailant’s motive was robbery, something police have questioned as well.
Apart from being armed with a .40-caliber Glock pistol, he had brought a roll of duct tape which he used to bound the women in a storeroom of the store.
“You came here to do something else,” Stewart says in the podcast. “You didn’t just come here to take the cash and go.”
She says she believes the killer “was no amateur,” as far as committing a crime.
“This was not his first rodeo,” she says.
Considering the killer entered the store shortly after it opened, and the business would not necessarily do a lot of business in cash. Stewart and Tramutolo question whether the motive would have been a simple robbery.
“It was so early in the morning most retail stores wouldn’t have a life-changing amount of money in the store,” Tramutolo said Wednesday.
Police had previously said their investigation didn’t uncover any evidence to suggest that any of the women knew their assailant.
According to police, McFarland managed to call 911 on her cellphone, whispering her location to an operator, who told her to stay on the line. McFarland pleaded “hurry” before the connection was lost.
An edited version of the 911 call is at the Tinley Park Police Department’s website.
The call was first received by the Will County sheriff ’s office and immediately transferred to Tinley Park, which took the call at 10:44 a.m., just about 40 minutes after the man entered the
store, according to authorities.
The homicides occurred in Brookside Marketplace southwest of Harlem Avenue and Interstate 80.
A Tinley Park police officer was on an unrelated call in the parking lot of Super Target, a few hundred yards away, and was on the scene at the Lane Bryant store within a minute, but the
gunman had already fled.
“He’s right there,” Tramutolo says in the podcast, questioning how the gunman could have escaped so quickly.
Stewart surmises the assailant might have been in the store by himself, but was not entirely alone.
“There had to have been someone waiting to pick him up,” she says. “I feel there is
no way he could have left on foot.”
The offer of the reward money failing to bring out a solid lead has confounded Tinley Park police, as well as the possible motive of the slayings.
“I find it very difficult to believe one person did this and didn’t talk to somebody about it,” Larry Rafferty, the department’s deputy chief, said in a February interview as the 14th anniversary of the slayings approached.
Tinley Park police have had investigators assigned to the case the entire time, and recently two new detectives were asked to take a fresh look and examine all of the evidence gathered since Feb. 2, 2008.
Since the slayings, police said they have processed some 7,500 leads.
Speaking Wednesday, Tramutolo said that the podcast has been shared with social media on a Tinley Park community Facebook page.
“The community really wants to get the word out and get the case solved,” she said.
In researching the case, she said she developed a strong connection with the victims.
“Those women all had very fulfilling lives,” she said. “Putting myself in their shoes made it so much more emotional for me.”
In the podcast, the pair note that police regularly monitor a tip line for the investigation, 708-4445394, and an email address, lanebryant.tipline@tinleypark.org.