According to online reports, the FBI is close to identifying the body of the child found in a white SUV registered to the slain brother of actress Jennifer Hudson.
The body has arrived at the medical examiner’s office and officials are awaiting the arrival of the Hudson family to make a positive ID.
According to Chicago news reports, Jennifer Hudson is said to be “devastated”. Hudson had offered a $100,000 reward for the safe return of her nephew, Julian King, who went missing the same day Hudson’s mother and brother were found shot to death in their home on Friday.
A press conference is expected after identification has been made.
The body was found in the back seat of a white Chevrolet Suburban that police were looking for in their search for the missing 7-year-old.
Residents in the neighborhood where the truck was found question why police didn’t find the truck sooner.
Neighbors disputed how long it had been there. A resident of the block, LaShaun Bouie, 36, said it must have appeared after 3 a.m. Monday morning. Rasheem Jackson, 21, who lives a block away, thinks he remembers seeing it as early as Saturday. Police received a call for a suspicious car at 7 a.m.
If the boy is identified as Julian King, it will confirm detectives’ worst fears because a law enforcement source said bullet casings were found in the boy’s room on Friday. But the source said they had not found other evidence of violence in the room.
As the car was processed by evidence technicians and workers at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office sought to identify the body, Hudson’s family members and supporters assumed this was the third member of her family killed since Friday.
“It’s shocking. It’s unreal. We had been praying that it would not come to this,” said Rev. Krista Alston, a cousin of Hudson and a minister at the Pleasant Gift Baptist Church in Chicago. “We know it’s a reality now, but it’s still shocking.” (Source)
