Student’s killing remains a mystery

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Updated: January 1, 2012 8:21AM

It’s been a year now since all hell broke loose in the Garden of Eden.

That was how Father Tom Mescall, pastor of St. Adrian Catholic Church in Marquette Park, described at the time the shooting that disrupted what had been an idyllic day for him and his parishioners on Nov. 28, 2010.

They’d just finished celebrating the dedication of a new site for the church’s beloved Lady of Fatima statue when shots rang out from nearby on 71st Street.

Those same shots did more than disrupt the day for Wesley and Clarice Miller. They turned it upside down forever more.

Left dead alongside a small neighborhood store was their son, Marcus Miller, an 18-year-old NIU student at home for Thanksgiving break.

Some of you may remember my story of how the Millers had always gone the extra mile to keep their children safe — mindful especially of the dangers to young African-American males in our society.

When Marcus was young, they put in a concrete basketball court in their backyard to make sure he always had a safe place to hang with friends and where they could keep an eye on him. Later, to keep them close, Wesley Miller took a teaching job at the charter school Marcus and his younger sister attended, and he drove them there daily.

The strategy worked — to a point. Up until the day he died, Marcus Miller had never been in any kind of trouble.

It was Father Tom, frustrated that no arrests have been made in Marcus’ death, who called to remind me a year had passed.

Father Tom has been emotionally involved in the case ever since that sunny afternoon a year ago when he walked to the scene where the police cars had stopped and encountered the body of a young man lying dead of gunshot wounds and his parents stricken with grief. After meeting the Millers, he later helped arrange for Father Michael Pfleger to post a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Marcus’ killer.

I’d already been thinking about the Millers since the news broke before Thanksgiving about another NIU student, 22-year-old Steven Agee II, being killed. Agee was shot at an off-campus party in DeKalb by a 19-year-old south suburban man. No connection, other than the demographics.

It doesn’t take another killing to remind the Millers about what happened to their son. They live it every day.

Wesley Miller said he’s reminded each time he drives past the murder scene on his way to work and every time he picks up his cell phone, which has a photo of his son as the screensaver. And though he didn’t tell me this, I’m sure he doesn’t need any visual reminder either — that he thinks about his son every time he closes his eyes.

Still, Wesley Miller took note of Agee’s death and thought of his grieving family.

“To see this happening again, it’s just senseless,” he told me Tuesday. “My heart goes out to that mother.”

In the past year, the Millers have tried to step up on behalf of victims of gun violence, attending CeaseFire meetings and even testifying in Springfield.

Police have never indicated his son was anything other than the innocent victim of a bullet meant for somebody else.

Wesley has no beef with the detectives investigating his son’s case. For a while, he tried poking around on his own, but decided that wasn’t wise. Now, he tries to be patient.

That doesn’t mean the Millers aren’t eager for their son’s killer to be caught.

“I don’t want him walking the streets and doing this to somebody else or thinking he got away with it,” Wesley said. “This person should be taken off the street.”

“We’re just remaining prayerful that justice is served,” he added.

Wesley said support from family and friends — and Father Tom — have helped him and his wife stay strong. The school where he now works has even established a scholarship fund in Marcus’ memory.

I asked Wesley about the basketball hoop in the backyard, the one he’d maintained all those years, even making sure there was always a net.

There’s no more hoop, he said. Marcus and his friends had bent the pole horsing around, then some neighbor kids finished the job playing on it this past summer.

“Now, he’s gone, and the rim is gone, too,” said his father, seeing the irony.

The broken pole remains, its jagged end covered with a garbage bag. Another reminder.