An 18-year-old man was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a woman as she was working at a Walgreens store in the Wicker Park neighborhood, Chicago police said Tuesday.
Sincere Williams is scheduled to appear for a bond hearing in the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Wednesday, charged in the fatal weekend stabbing of 32-year-old Olga Maria Calderon, officials said.
Authorities were called to a Walgreens store, 1372 N. Milwaukee Ave., just after 9:30 a.m. Sunday and found Calderon stabbed to death, police said.
Williams entered the Walgreens with a knife, hoping to rob the store, said Area 5 Detective Cmdr. Eric Winstrom, whose detectives investigated the case. He said Williams grabbed Calderon, who had been stocking shelves, around the neck.
“It appears that she tried to push away from Williams and he began stabbing her multiple times, causing her death,” Winstrom said Tuesday afternoon during a news briefing.
Williams did not flee the scene with any stolen merchandise from the store, police said. But when he fled, he discarded the knife and some clothing in a nearby yard, Winstrom said. They were later found by detectives, he said.
While Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said there were no eyewitnesses in the case, Winstrom said police used video footage from surveillance cameras in the area to track Williams all the way to his Near North Side residence in the 1400 block of North Sedgwick Street, about 2 miles east of the Walgreens. Police said a dog from the Cook County sheriff’s office was used by Chicago police in the investigation.
Williams was arrested Sunday night.
Winstrom said Williams is also believed to have committed two robberies on Sept. 2, one at the same Walgreens and the other at another Walgreens near North and Western avenues.
Chicago-based anti-violence activist Andrew Holmes said Calderon was a mother of two children, an 11-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy.
“Traumatized. Still in shock. It still hasn’t sunk in. The younger kid doesn’t understand. ... He’s asking for his mom,” said Holmes, who has spoken with the woman’s family. “The 11-year-old, she knows, and they’re trying to console her because she’s taking it hard.”
It was at least the second homicide at a Chicago Walgreens location in a little more than a year. On June 12, 2019, Chicago police began investigating the fatal shooting of another woman, 46-year-old customer Sircie Varnado, at the Walgreens store at 4817 W. Fullerton Ave. in the Northwest Side’s Belmont Cragin community.
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A store manager allegedly contacted a former security guard he knew who lived in the area, and that man is accused of showing up, confronting 100-pound Varnado who was suspected of shoplifting, pinning her down and shooting her in the face as he knelt on top of her during a violent struggle at that store.
But as for the Sunday homicide, Deenihan said Tuesday the crime was especially sad since Calderon was killed while trying to support her family.
“This is an unbelievably tragic incident to just ... be at a Walgreens working for your family and then have somebody, an offender come in and commit a heinous act like this and stabbing the victim to death,” said Deenihan. “So please keep the Calderon family in everybody’s thoughts and prayers. This is obviously a very difficult time for them.”
Chicago Tribune’s Paige Fry contributed.