More than two months after a beloved U.S. Postal Service carrier was killed in a shooting while working her mail route in Chicago, authorities have arrested a teenage boy on a murder charge.
The 15-year-old suspect, whose name was not shared by authorities, was arrested on Monday, Sept. 30, and faces a first-degree murder charge in connection with the July death of 48-year-old postal worker Octavia Redmond, the Chicago Police Department announced in a statement on Tuesday, Oct. 1.
It’s unclear if he has entered a plea or retained an attorney to speak on his behalf.
The victim was in front of a home in the city’s West Pullman neighborhood when someone shot her multiple times and fled the scene in a vehicle around 11:40 a.m. on July 19, police said, KCBD, ABC 7 and Fox 32reported.
Police said in Tuesday’s statement that police and private camera footage helped investigators “identify and chase the movements” of the 15-year-old suspect before and after Redmond’s killing. They added that they also received an anonymous tip, which helped identify the teenager as a suspect.
Kim Sanders, who goes to work in the neighborhood, told KCBD back in July that Redmond “was like a mother to the neighborhood.”
“My heart is shattered because she was a nice lady,” Sanders said, per the outlet. “She’d just come up and down the block and deliver the mail, didn’t bother nobody.”
According to reporting by ABC7, Redmond worked for the postal service for 15 years.
Shortly after the shooting, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service offered a reward of up to $250,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for Redmond’s killing. PEOPLE couldn’t immediately confirm whether that reward has been paid out since the 15-year-old suspect’s arrest.
Redmond’s family also raised nearly $8,000 in donations on a verified GoFundMe campaign created to help with funeral expenses following her death.
