EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. – A pregnant mother of four was shot inside her East St. Louis home. Her killer is still out there and the sister of the 29-year-old victim wants answers.
"I went to sleep and woke up, I woke up to a nightmare,” described Chandra Meeks. She had been trying to get a hold of her younger sister, Catherine Jackson, for hours last Wednesday.
“I kept calling her, kept calling her and I didn’t get an answer,” she said. “So, I called my mom and asked my mom, ‘have you seen Cathy?’”
Cat or Cathy, as she was best known, had been living in her East St. Louis house for no more than three weeks.
“I visited her Monday night and she was happy,” recalled Meeks. “She was in good spirits. And I always asked her, ‘are you going to be okay down here?’ and she said, ‘I'm good, don’t worry about that.’"
Last Monday night was the last time Meeks saw Jackson. Thursday morning, she got a phone call from her mom that Jackson had been shot. Police found Jackson’s 1-year-old son also inside the house. He was unharmed.
“The baby's eyes were really red and he just kept staring into space and everything,” Meeks said.
She now has temporary custody of the toddler. Meeks said, for many years, she was the guardian of Jackson’s two eldest children. They are now living with their father. Meeks said she feels like her family has been divided.
“We just want the kids back, so we can grieve together,” she said. “My sister's gone. It doesn’t even seem real. It doesn’t even seem real."
Meeks spoke with investigators Tuesday who told her that they have strong leads in the case. But, Meeks told 5 On Your Side she can’t even imagine who could have done this to her sister. She said Jackson had a lot of friends, never any enemies.
