‘Vibrant’ 15-year-old girl, who had been in critical condition since Chicago to Evanston shooting rampage, has died
CHICAGO – A 15-year-old girl who had been in critical condition since Jan. 9, when she was shot in the head while riding in her mother’s SUV, died Tuesday, officials said.
The teen is believed to be the latest victim of Jason Nightengale, 32, who was killed in a shootout with Evanston police on the same day he terrorized area residents during the two-city shooting spree that had already left dead four of the seven people Nightengale is accused of shooting.
Damia Smith, 15, died just before 4 p.m. Tuesday at Comer Childrens Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. She had been shot in the head and was in stable but critical condition before she succumbed to her injuries, making her the fifth fatal victim of the shooting rampage that spanned two cities, confounded area residents and left untold pain in its wake.
In previous interviews, Smith’s mother, Tiffany McNeal, said doctors were unsure whether McNeal’s only child would survive.
“They’re just saying it’s not looking good. But I’m believing. I’m believing in God,” McNeal told a Tribune reporter the day after her daughter was shot as McNeal drove the duo in her 2020 Chevrolet Equinox, in the 10300 block of South Halsted Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood.
Mother and daughter were on their way home after making a quick trip to a nearby drugstore that Saturday in early January. Police later said Nightengale previously had fatally shot Yiran Fan, a 30-year-old resident of China and doctoral student at the University of Chicago in East Hyde Park; Aisha Nevell, 46, who had long worked the door of the Barclay condo building; and Anthony Faulkner, 20, who had been in a convenience store in the 9300 block of South Halsted Street in the Brainerd neighborhood when he was shot.
Damia Smith was in the back seat as McNeal drove east on 103rd and made a right onto Halstead going south. Then she heard gunshots and her window had been shot out. She drove to a gas station where someone called 911, she said.
Her daughter attended Morgan Park High School, where she was on the dance team and also was a praise dancer for her church, Glory to Glory New Life Center, where the congregation had been praying for Damia to recover. McNeal previously had said her daughter didn’t regain consciousness after the shooting.
“She is a vibrant 15-year-old that just lived to laugh and made you smile all the time. She liked to dance and be on social media and she loved her friends,” McNeal said.
Damia has two sisters on her father’s side, McNeal said. “I’m numb. She’s my only ...” she said in an earlier interview, trailing off in grief.
Authorities say Nightengale then drove to Evanston, where he shot at someone in a CVS but did not injure anyone, then ran to the IHOP where he attacked a woman just inside the restaurant doors and shot her, investigators said.
She later was identified as Marta Torres, 61, who died from her injuries Jan. 16.
In the wake of the rampage, families are struggling with grief, anger and unanswered questions. Nightengale had posted numerous disturbing and nonsensical short videos on Facebook before the killings. In one, he brandished a gun; in another, he threatened to “blow up the whole community.”
Shirley Hinton, a 77-year-old woman who also was shot in the lobby of the Barclay building, and Virginia McAllister, an 81-year-old store clerk who was helping Faulkner with his purchase at the Brainerd convenience store, also were shot and survived. Updated conditions were not immediately available.