Related article: The Lethal Employee
By Emma Graves Fitzsimmons
The Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — An employee killed in a standoff in a Dolton insurance office Tuesday was beaten, stabbed and shot before police killed the offender, authorities said Wednesday.
Family and friends gathered outside the South Holland home of Jeniel Morgan on Wednesday to mourn the loss of the 42-year-old woman. Police said Morgan, an employee at Illinois Vehicle Insurance, was dead when officers entered the building after the standoff.
Dolton police Wednesday released a complete account of the events that led to the shooting of the Park Forest man who held up the store. Michael L. Rodgers, 34, of the 100 block of Lester Road pointed a gun at officers before he was shot three times, authorities said.
An autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner’s office found Morgan died due to a combination of cranial-cerebral injuries, blunt head trauma, stab and incise wounds and a gunshot wound in the thigh.
Rodgers died of gunshot wounds in St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields.
Dolton police said Rodgers was a former customer of the business but had no other connection to the victim.
Police went to the insurance office at 1031 E. Sibley Blvd. around 2:20 p.m. Tuesday in response to reports of a holdup. Rodgers confronted officers and displayed a semiautomatic handgun, saying he had a hostage and demanding $5,000 and a car, police said.
Authorities learned that Rodgers called a family member stating he had tried to rob the store and had shot and killed the salesperson. Investigators obtained a store video that supported the statements he made to family members, police said.
Hostage negotiators contacted Rodgers on his cell phone hoping to talk him into surrendering peacefully. While on the phone, Rodgers left the building from the east door with the handgun in his right hand, police said. Witnesses have said he left the office around 4 p.m.
Rodgers pointed the weapon at members of a regional SWAT team, and he was shot three times, police said.
The SWAT team, called the South Suburban Emergency Response Team, entered the building and found Morgan had been shot and had several cuts to her torso and head, police said.
People gathered Wednesday outside her home in the 1100 block of 161st Place in South Holland. Some hugged in the front yard, and others carried in boxes of food.
The Illinois State Police Public Integrity Task Force will assist the investigation, police said.
Copyright 2008 The Chicago Tribune