Dionne Mhoon was careful with her words as she stood in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on Wednesday, minutes after hearing how four teens had killed her daughter, a Chicago police officer.
“I stand before you guys today as a mother, a heartbroken mother, a mother that’s full of anger, rage,” Mhoon told reporters.
Her 24-year-old daughter, Aréanah Preston, had been looking forward to graduating with a master’s degree in criminology — just a week from the day she was gunned down.
The family was looking forward to a large party celebrating Preston’s and other family members’ academic accomplishments.
“Why?” Mhoon asked, knowing there was no answer to the tragedy.
The same question worried another mother, Jaquanna Walker, whose 16-year-old son is the youngest of the four suspects charged with first-degree murder.
Her son Jaylen Frazier was still alive, but Walker said it feels like she has lost him as well.
“It’s almost as if he’s dead, because his life is over at such a young age,” she said.
Each mother was left thinking of the other.
Mhoon told reporters she “felt sorry” for those accused of killing her daughter.
“As I sat in that courtroom today, the people I really felt sorry for was those boys,” Mhoon said. “I felt sorry for them because nobody, obviously, didn’t pour into them. Nobody told them you were loved, nobody told them you can do anything, like I constantly preach to my daughters.”
Walker told the Sun-Times she attended a memorial for Preston Tuesday evening after leaving the police station to turn in her son.
“She did not deserve that,” Walker said. “I am very, very sorry about what happened.”
Walker said she believed she raised her son better than the accusations against him would indicate.
“I’ve always worked a full-time job. No criminal background. We have a home. I’ve worked very hard, two jobs,” she said. “I don’t know what the draw of the streets is about. I don’t understand.”
Before he was arrested, Frazier allegedly talked to a friend about the shooting and said “it was his work,” according to Cook County prosecutors.
That stuck with Mhoon.
“Any time you can shoot somebody and say, ‘That was my work,’ what kind of human would say that about another human being?” Mhoon wondered.
But Walker said her son did not brag to her about his role in the shooting.
“He told me, ‘Mom, I’ve never seen anybody die before.’ He just started to describe how he saw someone on the ground, how it happened so fast,” Walker said. “He said it got out of hand.”
Walker said she asked her son if he had pulled the trigger.
“My concern was, was he monster enough to pull a trigger on the young lady?” Walker said. “I wanted to know that. I asked my son that. I asked if he was the person who pulled the trigger and he told me, no.
“And I was happy about that,” she said. “I don’t know how I would feel if he was the type of person who could take somebody’s life. He’s going to do time.”
According to prosecutors, Frazier was waiting inside the car when Preston was shot, although he had robbed other people at gunpoint earlier in the night.
“It’s crazy because, after turning my son in, I’m literally walking out of the police station into Areanah’s memorial.” Walker said. “If I didn’t have to pick up my other kids from school, I would have hugged the momma and given her my condolences, face to face.”
