Grandmother shot on porch says shooter was 'messing with a praying woman'

CHICAGO (WLS) -- An 81-year-old woman who was shot four times while sitting on a South Side porch said the shooter was "messing with a praying woman."

"I guess they thought they would kill me, but the Lord blessed me to be living," said Iola Mae Burress, who was shot Friday along with her grandson, Sylvester Burress, 34. The grandson, who was visiting from out of town, also survived the shooting.

The shooting happened at about 5 p.m. Friday in the 7800 Block of South Carpenter Street in the city's Auburn Gresham neighborhood while the family sat on their porch.

The family had just returned from a wake for Burress' daughter, Laverne, when shots were fired from the sunroof of a passing white sports-utility vehicle. Laverne died during heart surgery.

"Trying to get prepared to bury my only sister, it was rough, and then this?" said Mary Louise Burress, Iola Mae's daughter.

Iola Mae, a retired pastor, missed her daughter's funeral while she was in the hospital over the weekend.

The grandmother was shot twice in the arm, shattering the bones in her wrist, and in the abdomen and hip. The bullets missed vital organs. She will need surgery on her arm.

"The bullet hit up here and down here on my arm," Burress said. "Just kind of messed my mind up. But I feel much better about it. I can work with it."

The family has lived in that same home for more than 40 years, and they're well known on the block.

"Summer time, that's all we do is sit on the porch, talk to the neighbors, friends, family. So it was really, I don't even know, it was really disgusting," said Mary Louise, who is also the mother of the other victim, Sylvester.

No one is in custody in connection with the shooting.