5th victim dies after January attacks in Chicago, suburbs

CHICAGO – A 15-year-old girl has become the fifth person to die from a series of shootings last month by a Chicago gunman who was later killed in a suburban police shootout, authorities said.

Damia Smith was pronounced dead Tuesday at Comer Children’s Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. She was riding in a vehicle with her mother when she was shot and had been hospitalized.

According to police, Jason Nightengale, 32, of Chicago, shot seven people in a series of attacks Jan. 9 over a roughly four-hour period. Most of the attacks happened on Chicago’s South Side before Nightengale drove to Evanston, just north of the city, where officers killed him during a shootout.

Authorities have not released a motive in the killings, which they described as random. Nightengale posted numerous disturbing and nonsensical short videos on Facebook before the killings. In one one he brandished a gun; in another he threatened to “blow up the whole community.”

The other four people who died were Yiran Fan, a 30-year-old University of Chicago student from China; 20-year-old Anthony Faulkner; 46-year-old security guard Aisha Nevell; and 61-year-old Marta Torres.