Today marks the second anniversary of the murder of 9-year-old Mya Lyons, found stabbed to death in an Auburn-Gresham alley near her father's home on the night of July 14, 2008. And two years later, the case remains unsolved. In the days following her murder, police questioned a "person of interest," found a knife near the murder scene that may have been the murder weapon, and even questioned Mya's father, Richard Lyons, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Richard later filed a lawsuit against Metra because, according to the Chicago Defender, "failed to properly maintain the area where Mya’s body was found. The end of the poorly lit alley where she was found had overgrown weeds near the tracks and in a vacant lot." more ›

Jahmeshia Conner, a 12-year-old girl found raped and murdered in an Englewood alley two weeks after she had been reported missing, was put to rest Saturday, the Sun-Times reports. more ›

With the question of why a missing person alert for 12-year-old Jahmeshia Conner wasn't issued to the media hanging over its head, the Chicago Police Department is making changes to its alert system. The Tribune reports that 11 alerts have been issued in the last five days. Detectives investigating Jahmeshia's November 15th disappearance filed a report for an alert two days after she went missing but authorities are still looking into why the alert was never issued to the media; Jahmeshia was found dead in an alley early last week. Cindy Rudometkin of the Polly Klaas Foundation, though, expressed concern to the Tribune and called for discretion in issuing the alerts and the media's coverage of them: "If you put out an alert for every child, the alerts are not going to work anymore. People will become desensitized." more ›

• The Chicago Police Department is investigating why an alert on murdered 12-year-old Jahmeshia Conner was not sent out to the media as it should have been when the girl was reported missing two weeks ago. Current speculation is a computer issue may have been the problem. Jahmeshia's body was discovered in a South Side alley Monday.
• Bring on the TV ads in the race for the U.S. Senate.
• State lawmakers have set December 22 as the date for a hearing related to the possible sale of the Thomson Correctional Center to house terror suspects. [via WBEZ radio]

As the family of Jahmeshia Conner struggles to accept the girl's murder - ruled a death by strangulation by the Cook County medical examiner's office - and police search for clues in the case, family members are beginning to question the police response to the initial report that the 12-year-old girl had gone missing. Family members say the last time Jahmeshia was seen was on the night of Sunday, November 15, when her aunt watched her board a CTA bus. By 3 a.m., she had not returned home, though Jameshia's mother at that time assumed the girl had stayed the night at her aunt's house. When she didn't come home from school on the afternoon of the 16th, almost 24 hours after the girl had last been seen, the family contacted police. more ›

A tragic story broke last night as the body of 12-year-old Jahmeshia Conner, missing for two weeks, was found in a South Side alley last night. According to the Tribune, the body was found in an alley on the 6400 block of South Marshfield and while the Cook County Medical Examiner's office hasn't officially identified the body, family members told the Trib they identified photographs of the body as Jahmeshia. Birdie Lewis, the girl's mother, told the Tribune, "Her face was bashed in. And there was blood and scratches over her face. Why would they do that to her? That's a baby." According to the Trib's timeline: more ›