Jennifer Hudson with mom (Photo: CBS2.com)
By Alan King
AFRO Staff Writer
(October 26, 2008) - William Balfour, the estranged husband of Jennifer Hudson’s sister, Julia, is in custody as a suspect in the slaying of the Oscar-winning actress’ mother and brother on Chicago’s South Side.
William Balfour (Photo: TMZ.com)
According to law enforcement officials, a relative entered the house at 3 p.m. Friday and found 57-year-old Darnell Donerson, mother of the singer, fatally shot in her living room. The family members notified authorities, who then found Jason Hudson, 29, dead in a bedroom.
“I just can’t fathom something like this happening,” Ethel Grisom, a longtime family friend, told the media. “The entire family was just real friendly people who enjoyed being together. This is going to be devastating for them.”
The deaths appeared to be the result of domestic abuse, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
Meanwhile an Amber Alert was issued Friday for Jennifer Hudson’s 7-year-old nephew who went missing after the murders. It was believed that the boy was abducted by a suspect in the slayings, but when Balfour was arrested Friday evening the boy was not with him.
Cook County medical examiner’s office told the press that autopsies for Donerson and Jason Hudson were pending.
Jennifer Hudson once considered her mother’s home a haven that she visited as often as twice a month to escape Hollywood.
Hudson was in the Tamp area at the time of the slaying and planned to immediately head to Chicago, the Tribune reported. Her sister, Julia, met police at the Wentworth Area headquarters late Friday.
Many well-wishers expressed their condolences online.
“It’s a shame that someone would do this. It makes me sick just to think that this young woman has to battle this world alone without her mother,” Tawonna Jackson posted in response to the story on the Tribune website. “Jennifer, honey, I pray that you keep a sound mind….The Lord has you and he will not leave you. Please trust and believe that.”
On the TMZ celebrity site, Ava was also emotional.
“This is beyond tragic! My prayers to Jennifer, may God help you through such heartbreak,” she posted. “Nothing anyone can say or do will take away from the pain, but know you and your family are in many peoples’ thoughts & hearts.”
Jason Hudson (Photo: TMZ.com)
According to public records, Donerson’s home in the 7000 block of South Yale Avenue was listed as a last known address for William Balfour, the prime suspect in the investigation. Balfour has not been charged.
The Chicago Tribune reported that Cook County court records showed Balfour pleaded guilty in 1999 to attempted murder and vehicular hijacking. He was also convicted of possession of a stolen motor vehicle in 1998.
Jennifer Hudson once considered her mother’s home a haven that she visited as often as twice a month to escape Hollywood’s occasionally brutal and superficial ways, the Tribune reported. The Englewood neighborhood was a place where Hudson could walk through without anyone being hassled by fans and the paparazzi.
“My faith in God and my family – they’re very realistic and very normal, they’re not in to the whole limelight kind of ting, so when I go home to Chicago that’s just another place that’s home,” Hudson recently told the Associated Press. “I stand in line with everybody else; or when I go home to my mom, I’m just Jennifer.”