An assistant principal and her mother have been gunned down exterior her suburban Chicago center faculty by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself after capturing at cops.
Nerissa Lee, 46, and her 76-year-old mom have been killed on the finish of the college day Tuesday whereas sitting in a automobile exterior Lincoln Center Faculty in Berwyn, a couple of miles from Chicago, the Chicago Solar-Instances reported.
Lee’s husband, Steven T. Lee, pulled up beside them and shot them with a rifle, cops stated.
The husband then fired at responding cops earlier than capturing himself within the head, police stated.
One horrified witness reported listening to nearly two dozen gunshots.
“It was actually like 20 instances … very noisy, so that they made me come to the entrance. After I came visiting right here, I see by the nook — proper there — police,” Maria Meriz, who lives subsequent to the college, advised NBC 5.
Grotesque video reveals blood on the sidewalk subsequent to 2 automobiles parked in the course of the highway, blocked off with crime scene tape.
Lee’s sister stated that Tuesday’s horrific incident “didn’t come out of the blue,” and that the married couple’s relationship had deteriorated since “the tail finish of June.”
“And mainly the boiling level would have been [Tuesday],” Shana Everage advised NBC 5.
“It’s a horrible factor… I’ve numerous feelings. I don’t fairly know what to really feel,” Everage stated.
The murder-suicide has shocked the suburban city of Berwyn, which final yr was ranked because the thirty third most secure mid-size metropolis in America in a examine by nationwide safety overview platform Safewise.
The educator had a persona that “numerous lecturers don’t have now,” a former scholar, Hailey Bedoy, 16, advised the Chicago Solar-Instances.
“She at all times had a bubbly persona. She was very invested in her college students,” Bedoy stated. “She completed loads, she lived her life and she was a very nice human being. And that’s how she ought to be remembered.”
One other former scholar stated she bonded with Lee over a mutual love of Ice Dice and Dr Dre when she did a presentation on the rappers.
“She was at all times open to having a dialog or serving to somebody in want, and at all times checking in on us. She was at all times keen to be there within the more durable instances,” Hannah Zuniga, 16, advised the Solar-Instances.
Lessons have been as a consequence of resume on Thursday with counselors on-site, the college district stated in an announcement asserting Lee’s loss of life.
“It’s with nice unhappiness that I announce to you that Nerissa Lee, Assistant Principal at Lincoln Center Faculty, misplaced her life in [Tuesday’s] tragic capturing that occurred exterior of Lincoln,” learn the assertion signed by Superintendent Dr. Michelle Smith.
“The affect of this loss is deeply felt not solely throughout the faculty group however all through Berwyn. Assistant Principal Lee was a devoted educator and chief who touched the lives of numerous college students and workers members,” Berwyn Police Division stated in an announcement on Wednesday.
