http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=276170Police: 9-Year-Old Raped, Throat Slashed In 'Heinous' Slaying
Father Finds Girl, Brings Her To Hospital
POSTED: 6:11 am CDT July 15, 2008
UPDATED: 7:26 pm CDT July 15, 2008
CHICAGO -- A 9-year-old girl found dead by her father in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on the South Side was slashed in the neck and the abdomen and had been sexually assaulted, police have told relatives. An autopsy conducted Tuesday concluded that Mya Lyons died of multiple injuries from the assault.
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"The detective said it was a heinous crime. He said a lot of evidence was left behind," said Lyons' great-aunt, Karen Brown.
Mya lived with her mother, Erica Barnes, in Addison but for the last three years had been spending part of the summers with her father, Richard Lyons, in the 8400 block of South Gilbert Court. The mother had come by to pick Mya up yesterday but she asked to stay with her father longer, Brown said.
The girl went to a party on the block later that night with her older stepbrother and relatives at some point realized she was missing.
"Everybody was like, where is she," said her father. "We went looking for her and I found her in the alley. They dumped her in the alley'' at the end of the block near his home, said Lyons, breaking down.
Lyons rushed her to Jackson Park Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 2:10 a.m. Tuesday.
"We went to the hospital and they wouldn't let us see her," Brown said. "It was terrible. We prayed, we prayed. It was unbelieveable. The mother is taking it hard, very hard. She had gone to pick her up yesterday but she wanted to stay, so she let her stay. At the hospital she was saying, 'I should have picked her up, I should have picked her up.'"
Police were saying little about the investigation, but the father said he was brought to the police station for questioning.
"It was very difficult, as I spent the night at the police station,'' Lyons said, sobbing. "They treated me nicely, but it was too long to be there.
"I just got home,'' Lyons said around 8:30 a.m. "I want the world to know: Love your kids while you have them because you don't know how long you're going to have them. I loved my baby.
"I have my memories of my vacations with her, I have the memorial of the trips I took her on. They can never take that away from me,'' he said, adding they had just taken a "huge road trip.''
"We got in the car and we drove to Atlanta, we drove to New Jersey and we drove to Florida and we drove to Pennsylvania, all in one trip. It was so much fun. I asked her what part of the trip she liked most and I just knew it would be Disneyworld. She didn't. She said, 'I had so much fun everywhere I went and everywhere we stopped.' She couldn't even make up her own mind which one she liked the best. I just knew it was going to be Disneyworld but it wasn't. It was everything. That made me feel so good."
He said he took the trip with his wife and Mya's older brother and younger sister.
Mya was getting ready for her birthday, he said.
"It's in November. She was going to be 10. She was going into her double digits,'' Lyons said. "She was so fun-loving, but she was apprehensive and very intelligent. Oh my God, you should hear, my wife would purposely sit her down just to hear her talk."
Mya's aunt, Nicole Barnes, 27, said Mya was an honor student at Stanley Hall school in Glendale Heights. For last three years, had been spending part of the summers with her dad, Richard Lyons.
"She loved to play. She played ropes, she loved dolls, especially Barbie dolls. She also liked Baby Alive," Barnes said. "And she loved riding her bike. She would sing to every song on the radio. She loved to sing. She loved to tell jokes."
Nicole Barnes said Mya was a favorite of her teachers.
"She loved math, she loved reading."
Anyone with information on the crime is asked to contact police at 312-747-8272.
Information provided by Sun-Times News Group
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