A massive manhunt was under way last night for a gunman who killed five women in a Chicago clothes shop after an apparent botched robbery.

Police fanned out across the city, helicopters fitted with infra-red search devices took to the skies and sniffer dogs ran through nearby shops and malls after the shooting, but no trace of the gunman has been found.

Armed police discovered the victims, including at least one employee, shot dead in a back room of the Lane Bryant shop - an outlet that sells oversize women's clothing - after receiving an emergency call at about 10:45am on Saturday.

Chief Mike O'Connell, of Illinois police, said that a witness saw a stocky African American man, about 1.75m (5ft 9in) tall and wearing a black winter coat, a knit cap and dark trousers, run out of the front of the shop.

Police Sergeant T.J. Grady added: “Every store was immediately canvassed, and a search by air, too, has given us every indication that the offender has left the scene.”

The shootings come two months after eight shoppers at a department store in Omaha, Nebraska, were killed by a teenage gunman, who then turned the weapon on himself. Last April a gunman killed two people in a Missouri shopping mall parking lot before being shot by police.

A year ago, a gunman killed five people inside a mall in Salt Lake City, Utah. There were several other rampages in the US last year, including the Virginia Tech massacre, when 33 people - including the gunman - died in one of the worst mass shootings in American history.

In the Chicago shootings, police said they believed that robbery was the motive. The shop did not have its own security camera, but investigators were trying to determine if video evidence could be obtained from cameras at nearby shops, Mr O'Connell said.

Police had not identified the victims last night but said that the five women ranged in age from 22 to 37.

The family of Carrie Hudek Chiuso, 33, a school social worker from Chicago, confirmed that she was one of the victims.

Jennifer Hudek, Ms Chiuso's sister-in-law, told the Chicago Tribune: “She is the most wonderful person, and that maniac took a piece of all of us.”

The shootings occurred in Tinley Park, an affluent Chicago suburb about 30 miles from the centre of the city. It is known as a low-crime area. According to police, the last piece of crime news there was the theft of a Salvation Army collection kettle in December.

In a Target store across the parking lot from Lane Bryant, terrified customers were herded to the front as police with pistols and rifles drawn went up and down the aisles and into storerooms searching for the gunman. “I was so scared I couldn't think,” said Selena Kujawa, who had just entered the store with her five-year-old son when it was locked down. After about an hour, customers were told to leave.

“They told us to get in our cars and get out of here,” Ms Kujawa said. She added that her son was still asking about it. “There will be lots of nightmares tonight,” she said.

Tracy Caccavella, another witness, said that she had been shopping at a pet store across the parking lot late on Saturday morning when police arrived.

“Six police entered the store with their hands on their gun holsters,” she said. The officers searched the pet store and then left, she added.

Police tape flapped in the wind in front of the boarded-up clothes shop yesterday. Mourners brought flowers as shoppers returned to the mall, many horrified by the brutality of the killings.

The gunman herded the five women into the back room before killing them.

Police refused to discuss the specifics of the investigation but said that detectives were “sifting through the crime scene inch by inch”.

Throughout the day support poured in from politicians and neighbouring police departments.

Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate from Chicago, released a statement decrying the violence and saying that his heart went out to the victims' families.

Mall terror:

Nine people were shot dead by Robert Hawkins during a shooting spree with a rifle in a mall in Nebraska in December. Hawkins had lost his job, broken up with his girlfriend and been thrown out of his parents house prior to the attack

A gunman at a mall in Missouri killed two shoppers before turning his gun on himself in April last year. The mall shooting began when police recognised the vehicle and tried to arrest the man

In February last year, Sulejmen Talovic shot dead five shoppers in a mall in Utah before he was shot by a policeman

A gunman in a Florida mall killed another man before dying in a gunfight with police on Christmas Eve 2006.

Source: Times archives

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