By Christopher Sutter
For what Cherry now knows continues to weigh her down with regret.
Haunted Home
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| Delphine Cherry with son Tyler and daughter Tracii during somewhat happier times in 2010. |
In a daze, on a silent January night, Delphine Cherry stands,
staring at a house across the street. Her fingers tightly gripping her dog’s
leash, they both appear calm, still, though inside, Cherry is smitten with
anger.
Two weeks have passed since the murder of her son,
Tyler. Her eyes transfixed, she watches
as shadows move about the house.
“They’re moving around like nothing ever happened,” she says
softly.
For a number of reasons, she says, she believes she knows who killed her son. And she believes some of her neighbors are key to solving the question of who murdered her son. Delphine Cherry is no stranger to tragedy. Along with the death of her son, Cherry’s daughter Tyesa was also shot and killed, walking out of a movie theatre 20 years earlier.
For a number of reasons, she says, she believes she knows who killed her son. And she believes some of her neighbors are key to solving the question of who murdered her son. Delphine Cherry is no stranger to tragedy. Along with the death of her son, Cherry’s daughter Tyesa was also shot and killed, walking out of a movie theatre 20 years earlier.
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| Tyesa Cherry, Tyler's eldest sister slain in 1992 outside a Chicago movie theater at age 16. |
And with two of her four children
gone, Delphine carries on, battling the anger and a certain sense of denial, unsure of
what to do next.
Tyler, whose last name is Randolph, was shot in the driveway
the evening of Dec. 22, right outside Cherry’s Hazel Crest home, just yards
from his front doorstep. After being shot, Tyler, 20, managed to rush to his
neighbor’s house and was subsequently taken to South Suburban Hospital, then
airlifted to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, his mother says. He passed away soon
after. South Suburban claims he was shot in the back, Christ said the chest.
She has not yet received a coroner’s report.
Months later, many questions remain unanswered for Cherry.
Her eyes tired, she sits uneasily in her two-story home. A house used to
holding gatherings for various family members and friends sees visitors much
less now. The pink carpet seems less vibrant, more solemn.
“Tyler used to love this house so much. He felt so safe
here,” she said. “But I should have known. I should have said ‘forget the
house’ and just moved.”For what Cherry now knows continues to weigh her down with regret.
Haunted Home
Before moving to Hazel Crest in 2000, the Cherrys were the
first black family to move to Alsip, another south suburb, where they lived for
10 years, she says. Then followed short stays in nearby Blue Island and Calumet
City. Once in Hazel Crest, Cherry purchased the house once she realized it was
in foreclosure.
“I didn’t want my children to live in Chicago,” she says, explaining that locating to the suburbs was her short-term plan. “When Tyler got out of high school
my goal was to move south.”
To Atlanta, Cherry hoped. Though once she moved into their
home, Cherry found a job as a probation officer for the Cook County Department
of Social Services and worked up until being laid off in June 2012.
The house that Cherry and her family joyfully moved into now
haunts her. She recalls memories of Tyler wrestling with the dog in the living
room at 3 a.m., summer pool parties in the backyard and sending Tyler off to
high school prom. Though nowadays, every time she walks out the front door, she
stands at the site of her son’s death.
“I’ll never forget him telling me, ‘“Momma, I’m so afraid of
somebody coming in here,”” she says. “I told him ‘Tyler, you don’t have to
worry about them coming in here.’ But how did I know that they’d be waiting for
him on the outside?”
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| A wanted poster offering a reward for the capture of Tyler's killers next to his handwritten note. Photo by: Christopher Sutter |
Cherry says that in 2011, Tyler received a phone call to pick
up a friend in need. The friend, she says, had stolen a purse outside of a
Family Dollar. After Tyler picked up that friend and brought him back to the
Cherry house, Hazel Crest police soon arrived. While Tyler faced the police at
the front door, the friend escaped out the back door. With Tyler’s phone
confiscated by police, they later locate that friend as well as Tyler and
arrest them both, according to Cherry.
“From then on, my son had been labeled a snitch,” says
Cherry, adding that Tyler was robbed in February 2012, jumped and beaten a few
months after that. Cherry alleges that Tyler’s friend, arrested over the purse, partook in both of these acts against her son, and that the friend also may
have played some role in Tyler’s shooting death in December.
“Ever since my brother met him its just been nothing but
trouble,” says Tamika Howard, 32, Delphine’s now eldest daughter says of her
brother’s friend. “It’s sad because that’s what he knows: stealing, violence.”
According to Det. Anthony Gray of the Hazel Crest Police Department, as of April 2013, the case remains open and they have not located the shooter.
According to Det. Anthony Gray of the Hazel Crest Police Department, as of April 2013, the case remains open and they have not located the shooter.
Before giving birth to three girls, Cherry had always wanted
a boy. Tyesa was born in 1975, Tamika in 1980 and Tracii in 1989.
“I figured boys would be easier looking from my mother’s
experience,” says Cherry, who was raised by a single mother and has two
sisters.
Sunshine
Sunshine
Delphine Cherry gave birth to Tyler exactly nine months and
two days after the murder of Tyesa, 16, in 1992. With the pregnancy unexpected
and her first-born daughter dead, Cherry was convinced she would put Tyler up
for adoption, only to be persuaded otherwise within 24 hours of his birth.
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| Delphine Cherry holds a picture of daughter Tyesa fatally shot in 1992 outside a downtown Chicago movie theater. Photo by: Christopher Sutter |
“I really thought I was faced with this injustice. Here you are,” Cherry says of God,
“taking this child away from me and giving me another one, the boy I
always wanted.”
But as Tyler grew older and Cherry began to spend time with
her son, she began calling him her “sunshine,” and still does today.
“He took those feelings away because I was so busy with
him,” she says. “It helped me.” As he aged, Tyler became interested in cars and
producing music, got a job at Walmart and took care of the house he
loved--mowing the grass in the summers and shoveling in the winter.
“He wasn’t anxious or thirsty, but he was eager to really
show the world what he was made of,” says his sister, Tamika. “If he wasn’t
cheated of his time, he surely would have had the opportunity to leave his mark
on the world.”
With such an opportunity vanished, Cherry spends much of her
time in her room with the door closed, as it is painful to wander around their
beautiful home, thinking of Tyler. She has yet to clean his room out or send
thank you cards for condolences sent. She became upset at seeing her young
grandson wearing one of Tyler’s T-shirts.
“I know I’m in denial,” she says. “My thing is, my son is
going to walk through that door. Maybe this is all a nightmare.”
Epilogue
Artifacts of Tyler’s short life are scattered around
Cherry’s home. Notebooks with memos and raps written in them and wallet-sized
school photos are sprawled out along the dining table. There is a pile of
freshly printed flyers, offering a reward of $7,500 for any information on the
murder of Tyler Randolph.
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| Tyler's notebooks and memos grace a table inside his home months after his murder in which police have made no arrests. Photo by: Christopher Sutter |
As her daughter Tyesa’s death was devastating, now 21 years
ago, the death of her son angers Delphine Cherry.
“It’s like a dagger in my stomach. Instead of being pulled out
its being twisted more,” she explains. “I don’t sleep at night. I’m on
medication. I’ve lost about 15 pounds.”
While Cherry possesses a great deal of pain, she has always
held a drive to help others. Always an active mother, offering advice to
troubled children or sticking up for her own when no one else would, she plans
on starting a foundation, “Ty,” in honor of her two slain children. The
organization will be designed to help those who have lost multiple children to
gun violence.
“She doesn’t understand how empowered she is,” says Tamika
Howard, standing beside her mother. “She is a role model. My mother has birthed
four, but she has raised so many other children.”
Except she now carries in her heart the burden of burying
two of her own.
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