SIU student fatally shot in Country Club Hills while home for break

COUNTRY CLUB HILLS, Ill. (WLS) -- Relatives are remembering a college freshman from the south suburbs who was fatally shot on Friday night.

Family members say Justin Haney, 18, was walking to his girlfriend's house in Country Club Hills when he was shot in the back. Haney, a freshman at Southern Illinois University, was home on winter break.

On Monday afternoon, Rose Marie Haney identified her son's body after he was gunned down near the family's south suburban home.

"When you see your little angel from an infant baby grow up to an 18-and-a-half-year-old and then he's just taken away from you in a moment, he's gone," Rose Marie Haney said.

Relatives say Justin Haney was attacked Friday night around 7:30 p.m. in the south suburb as he walked to his girlfriend's house. Officers responded to a report of gunfire and found Haney lying face down in the snow in the 4100-block of 186th Street, just blocks from his house. He had been shot in the chest.

"He was so excited about school. That's the thing that just gives me the most, he was just so close to returning," said Antonia Thomas, victim's sister.

Justin Haney was two weeks old when the now 72-year-old retiree adopted him 18 years ago. She was in her 50s then and already a single parent. So with the assistance of others and her biological daughter, Haney raised him and a relative she'd taken in.

"I felt like I was a teenaged mother. I would bathe them, dress them," Thomas said.

Justin Haney was a freshman at Southern Illinois University, where he was majoring in business and wanted to be a stockbroker. Relatives say he loved sports and was very smart. Family and friends say they don't know why anyone would want to hurt Justin.

"Everybody loved him and I'm just really sad to see what happened to him," said Anne Hamilton, victim's aunt.

Rose Marie Haney is now struggling to say goodbye to the once-orphaned child she vowed to never let go.

"You can't talk him anymore, you can't say anything to him anymore, you can't fuss at him anymore. It's hard," Rose Marie Haney said.

Country Club Hills investigators say they are following several leads and are questioning several persons of interest in Haney's death.

Relatives say they are still working out details of his funeral.