Chervon Alexander was found shot to death late Monday night.
Two men are being questioned by River Forest police in connection with the killing.
Charges have not yet been filed.
This is the first homicide in River Forest since 2005.
Friends say Alexander was planning on getting married soon to a man she had known for several months. She left home Monday night, apparently on her way to get a bite to eat. Police were called a while later to a parking lot in River Forest where she had been shot.
Police say the victim was in her car, in the driver's seat, sitting in a parking lot near Dominican University when someone approached and fired several shots through the driver's side window.
Paramedics rushed Alexander to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her minister, Vincent Hinton, went to the hospital with her family.
"She just didn't deserve what happened to her. She was a wonderful person," said Hinton.
"She'd take the kids to school and go to church...never had a fight, an argument, nothing," said Derrick Williams, a friend of Alexander's.
Friends and neighbors say Alexander was a woman with strong faith who doted on her two children.
Alexander graduated college last year and was looking for a job in law enforcement like her two brothers.
Williams says he grew up with Alexander in their West Side Chicago neighborhood.
"It's hard to imagine...wrong place, wrong time I say," Williams said.
Police say the gunman fled the parking lot moments after the shooting, but thanks to a witness description, police stopped the car about a mile away. They arrested the two men in the car, and they found what they believe was the murder weapon, a handgun.
"On a hot night like this there are a bunch of people out here. As for her reasons for being here, it is still under investigation," said River Forest Police Sgt. Jim O'Shea.
"There is no reason," Hinton said. "This is a senseless, senseless act. She had absolutely no enemies."
Police say neither the victim nor suspects had any connection to Dominican University.
Police are talking to two people they call suspects and a third man they are calling a person of interest.
Police say they have turned the investigation over to the state's attorney's office and it is possible charges could be filed soon.
