Up next out Loud with Giano called part of the game which Demetrius Griffin Jr. Was just fifteen years old when he was burned alive on the West Side of Chicago, placed in a garbage can, and left to die in an alley. The teenager's death was ruled a homicide but remains unsolved. Today. I try to get to the bottom of what happened. This is outllowed with Giano calledwell, Welcome
back to allowed with Gianno calledwell. I'm Gianno calledwell and on this week's show, I'm talking about violence in Chicago, which continues to devastate the city in so many families. In fact, over the Loan Fourth of July weekend, at least a hundred and eight people were shot in Chicago, including two police officers and several children. Two of those children were girls aged five and six years old. At least seventeen were killed in the shootings, and another person
was murdered and as stabbing. And just two weeks earlier, over Father's Day weekend last month, a hundred and ten people were shot in Chicago. Fourteen of them, including five children, were killed. That was in less than three days. I want to tackle this tragic situation in Chicago by going back to one especially horrific case. In fifteen year old Demetrius Griffin Jr. Was found dead in a garbage can, burned beyond recognition in an alley on the West side
of Chicago. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said he was burned alive following an optopsy law enforcement rulee Demetrius death at homicide, but his case remains unsolved. His family is unsatisfied, demanding justice for a boy who was described as gentle, respectful, and someone who loved dogs. They have offered rewards for in nation on the Killer or Killers to learn more. My guests on this week's show is demetrious aunt Rochelle Sykes, who has continued fighting for a
nephew and seeking answers. Rochelle is also a woman of faith who works at the new Mount Pilgrim Church in Chicago. With that, I want to welcome Rochelle Sykes to Outllow with Giano Caldwell. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you. Now you know I've met you before. I actually interviewed you for Fox News Channel and then I pushed the Lord Ingram Show to to do the the town hall on Chicago violence, and you joined joined us then, and then you joined us for a second UM town hall
the following year. So much has happened in the city of Chicago. If you look at the numbers. Some have estimated the fourth of July weekend that was over a hundred and ten people shot UM so many fatally, I believe about eighteen and twenty fatally, including two police officers. What the heck is going on in Chicago? I have
no clue. UM, I see right now, I see if you know that your child or your significant other, your loved one, your your grandchildren, your children are doing things that are not um of legal standards, we need to come together and turn these people in. We know that, UM, every child is not perfect. Every child is not perfect.
But when you harbor UM a person that may have killed or hurts someone, or you know that they're have a thousands and thousands of guns or just a house full of gun and ammunition and hanging with the wrong people, I'd rather you turn that child in. Dame, you stand at the great fight and much to lower down. And I a hud agree with you as someone who's from the city and whose family has also been impacted by
the violence in Chicago. I would rather much rather even a family member go to jail than to see them out committing more crimes and endangering the lives of others. So I really appreciate you saying that, and I want to I want to get into, um, what happened with your your nephew, such a young young life, fifteen years old when this happened. Can you take us back to that tragic day in when did you know something was wrong? And how did you find out Demetrius was no longer
with us? Well, it goes back to that Saturday morning. Um, My mom's birthday was on the nineties. Um, go back to that Saturday morning. We were picking her. Um, Me and a couple of other church members were picking her out to take her out for breakfast to celebrate her her birthday because the church's pastor's anniversary was that weekend
as well. And so when I pulled up to pick her up, my sister and my niece was coming out, and I'm like, Okay, where is she on this early in the morning, because my this is not a morning person. She said, well, Demeter has didn't come home last night. And I was like, okay, what do you need he didn't come home last night, because that made no sense because he's never missed a curfew. And she said, well,
he didn't come home last night. And but some odd meason right away to my mind came what I saw in the New nes is that they found the body of block and a half away in a garbage camp, burned beyond recognition. Um. They had said it was a small frame. Um man, they said it was a man at first. So we went on to breakfast and we ate. We sat in eight and what we was uneas everybody
at the time it was unneas. So we came back, we came to the church, We did what we needed to do at the church and bringing that by time we got back to the house, he would have showed up when we would know his whereabout. And when we came back to the house, she said she hasn't seen him. No one had seen him. And so um, I said, well, you know it's time that we contact the police because this is not of his nature. And I did speak
to someone at the police station. They and they asked me some questions about you know, how tall was he, how big was he? And and things of that nature. And then UM, the first thing I had spoken was teld me, well, I think you wouldn't need to get some gentraal records. UM. Amberler did go up. I did um authorize for them to pick up his central records. And at that point it was a way. Yet we waited. UM that was that was out. Saturday we waited. Sunday
we attended church. UM we helped our pastor celebrate um his anniversary because that's what we would have done naturally. UM, and we just prayed that the outcome wasn't the outcome that we were feeling it love. UM. We did not tell pastor. UM. We did tell one of the associate ministers so that someone at the church wouldn't know what was going on because the meet was also a member of the church and baptized and UM Christian at New Mount killed me. So we didn't tell pastor. UM. Monday
came around. I didn't let him know that Monday, and UM he was a little bit distraught about it. UM about three something, UM I got calm um to come that the police was there and my time I got there that you will leave it and they had identified him UM by his dental records stepped out? Was him? I mean if the house was full of people and polsal screaming when I when I walked up, folks we screaming.
You can just hear people screaming from outside. And to say that when I say that, I pulled up in a car to a house where the door was closed and I can hear screaming, you need to No one heard him scream in that alley. He was birth alive. No one heard him scream in that alley. Are we going about our business so much that we don't recognize when there's something wrong and to report it? Are we that afraid that we cannot report when the client is going on. When you see something out there, you don't
say anything you see something wrong. If you saw a young person walking down the street with a handgun in the hand, you wouldn't call the police. That's the part that disturbing to me is that we are allowing them to take over, and then they are getting younger and younger people to do these clients because they're getting a flap on the rim. At some point we have to stand up and say enough is enough. And it starts
you're you're absolutely correct. And every time I hear this story, it really brings tears to the eyes of so many that Loria Ingram heard the story and she began crying on air. Um, I think that is it's just deplurable. What has happened to your nephew and what has happened in the city of Chicago, and it seems to be no answers to what's going on one in fact, things
have gotten worse, not better. They've gotten worse. And you wonder and you mentioned you said, you know, they get a slap on a risk and that goes back to the County prosecutor's office, who's allowed over twenty five people off without charging them. And these were felony cases, some of them include murder. Knowing what happened to your your nephew, how does that make you feel? It makes me sick to my stomach because one of those people could have
been the person that murdered my nephew. I have no answers, I have no closure. I've had no sleep. I mean, I have nothing. Nothing we had we went from we didn't even have a funeral. There was nothing to say goodbye too. They met us at the at the funeral I mean at the cemetery with the casket. That's how we said Goodbut we had a memorial service and it was over seven. Well here, but it's not the same.
That's not the same. It's different when there's someone that passes yea um um elder age and someone that passes that has been sick, because then you get too to sit with that person and you get to um talk with that person and get to you know, let them know that it's okay. But when someone is matched from you with no means of an explanation of m it's
a hard thing to deal with. My family is torn apart, and I for sure there's other families like mine with no no resolution, no answer, and one't why this is continually to happen. And then some people won't say anything or do anything until it hit your front door. You need to start thinking to now, you need to start doing something now. Anybody in my family know that I will turn them in without a doubt. I will have
the stuff without a doubt. I'd rather you be alive and locked up, and then my whole family know through the misery of having to put you in the ground, not knowing what happened to you and wishing we could have done something new. And and with that being the case, as you just as you just said, you would rather someone go to jail than throw their lives away by shooting someone else and then possibly in and up dead themselves. You would rather them go to jail. And I understand that.
And let me ask you this question. And I know that your nephew you were responsible for him. Was his mom not around? Was his dad not around? What was the situation there? No, his his dad was around. His dad recently died. Um of Ana. Yeah, I think it was from a bloken heart, but they will around. But he was my only nephew, so he's the teeth baby. UM. When Demetrius was born, he was pretty um I think he weighed a little bit less than three pounds and
he had these beautiful bluish gray eyes. So he became everyone's baby because he was the baby of the family for a long time. And then he was so little for his age, so he was everybody's baby. So even though I did a lot of things for him, everybody actually did a lot of things for him, and UM took they just took him into his wing because he was a lovable kid. He had an old soul um. He loved animals, He did things for the native he saw someone carrying that he would want to help and
take their spains in the house. Just the type of kid he loved. Now I'm not he was a good kid, not involved in any of the gangs or any of the trouble in Chicago, which typically when I was growing up, the way people were shot. Of the reason why is because they were involved in gangs, they hung out with the wrong people. And certainly these days that doesn't matter anymore. It's not the same thing. It's not an affiliation thing.
A kid was twenty well, young man twenty years old on the l just the other day, was a student of the University of Chicago. A bullet shot through the train station window and paralyzed them, and his parents just recently had to make the tough choice of taking him off of a ventilator. It's happening to a lot of people in the city of Chicago all over, and it's not just frustrating. It's become a war zone. You don't know if you're gonna you enter, you may not survive
and leave. It's horrendous where you need younger and younger killing gun Why absolutely, you're correct to ask that question, and more importantly, why is the Cook County Prosecutors Office letting people off the hook with a slap on the wrist for doing serious crimes creating more creaking, more havoc in the communities. Now I want to ask you. I've read that your nephew, Demetrius, he was murdered by other
black kids because he refused to join a gang. But some have said in the media that, um, they don't really know and the case just remains unsolved. Do you have any information as to the motive of why this would happen to your nephew. No, I do not. It may know, it makes it makes no sense because Demetrius, he was fifteen, but he looked to be nine. He was only ninety seven pounds. He was only four nine in heights, so he was a little for his age. He had a he had a major problem with sitting
in with his age group. So because he didn't he fit with them, he played with kids that are younger than he was because he were more of their size. When he was growing up, there's nothing that you could not knock on my mother's door and say, well, Demetrius did this or Demetris did that. There was nothing that you could knock on her doing to tell her never had any problems with Demetrius and stood never had to go up there for him, never had I've never had
up there with him. When he got in high school. I'm the one that had him in road. He was only there two weeks. I've never got a call about that because think he did not play that. My thing is Demetrius was a little bit scary because he was smaller, and like I said, he played with smaller kids because of his weight and height. So when they say that they wanted him in a game, and I my only thing that comes to my mind is for what he can't do anything. He's too scary and he know his
t t A is not going to play that. He never drank he and he never smoked any marijuana or didn't even drug. So if they were trying to recruit him, what would be the purpose of recruiting him, and why, what would be that purpose? And so that because he's little work, you think he would get off, but he wouldn't bloom again we because he knows that's not what Lee is still into him. We need to pause here
for a break. We will be back. You know, it's it's one thing that kills some one, but this was done in such a gruesome way, burning Demetrius alive live, leaving him to dine a garbage can in the alley. This is just next level of torturous. There was no one in his family that was involved in anything that they were trying to um to respond to and trying to get to my that was beloved in your family.
There was nothing like that or anything, um that you can think of that that possibly could have occurred in my immediate family. And as far as I know, we have no gang members. And if it is, it's something that I don't know. Um, I don't have any brothers, so it's just me and my sister, and I have a step sister, and UM, my sons are not gang related. My sons don't even hang on the corner because they know that. I don't allow that. I cannot imagine what it could have been, or I mean, I've heard a
bunch of things. I heard it. I've heard it was gang gang, you know, they wanted him to join a game. Then I heard it was some some some um skinheads. I heard something about that, and then somebody said he might have saw something. None of it makes sense. Nothing that you can say would make sense to take someone life by burning them alive. Nothing you could say would make sense of me hearing this kid yelling for help and me not doing anything. None of that makes sense.
Nowhere around does that make sense. And that's why. On the corner of Cortez and Centrol there's a bench, there's a big red cross, there's a book box for books for children. We keep that corner clean because you're gonna remember that this kid was over here and you said nothing. We make it clean. I keep it clean, I weeds. I keep that clean. So children can go and sit on that bench, they can get in a book out that book box. They can feel comfortable sitting right there
on that corner. Nothing of it, no, nothing makes sense. All is killing, moll is shooting, shooting up in the air. What would be the purpose of that. Get a job. My grandmother her in her grade now because she is on a plantation, and what we had to go through to be where we are now, and then look pulling on that back from us. Yes, and I absolutely agree with what you're saying, do you feel any level of frustration with the law enforcement or the politicians that were
around during this time. I think Rama Manuel's in office during this era. Yes, I do. The superintendent at that time and the mayor at that time, we contact them thirty days. I had thirty days of confirmation numbers where I had called three one one. We have yet to hear from either one of them. Are you here? Is I kid you not? Let me tell you just I just want to make sure I'm hearing you right, you're saying Mayor Rama Manuel and the superintendent of police at
that time. Neither one of them followed up with you there. Their office is no one touch base. No, we've never heard from that. And at that time I did contact Kim Fox's office because I just needed some help or where to the county prosecutor. Kim Fox is who you're referring to, and I was told that they couldn't do anything until there's an arrest. They couldn't help me until there was an arrest. That's what I was told by them. I sent a letter to the White House to our
former president. I got a letter back. I didn't send a letter requesting any money from him. I needed some help. I needed help. I didn't know. I don't I don't know what to do. This is the first this, this is the first trinity in our family. I don't know what to do. I need help. I sent back. Then I got a letter back from the White House. Then they don't do donation. That's not what I asked you for.
I asked you for help because at that point, we didn't know if it was a serial killer out here, because who does that to a young person, a child? So we didn't know if it was a serial killer out here. We've had a go find me page, We've had that open too. I did get a foundation set up for him to help with maybe getting detectives, just to help with the justice for that, and then to try to help other young people. Barry ten thousand dollars, and five of that came from Laura. Laura Ingram donated
to the to the foundation. Yeah, yes she did. She she donated five thousand dollars. But my my, my mom always say you have and and and and I'm not I'm not a racist person or anything like that. And I know people donate to things that they want to donate to. And I just you have. My mom was very upset because the two little girls that came up missing in Indiana. And my heart went out Today's family
because I know how they felt. I know how the family felt, because you know, we've lost our loved one too. But her thing was is that they had got the FBI and and then they had got all of this money from I guess the state, and here he is. We're out here, we're passing out flyers. Were having fund raisers on Mother's Day. We stand out there on the corner. We give out Mother's Day guilt, to give out Father's Day gifts. We have a um A community block club
every year for the kids. We give our book bags and clothes and persons and thinks of that nature. They have or found that they have um A college thing at at New Mount Pilgen, where Demitrian was a member. We give out stuff, look the kids that are going
away to college. We do all of that. And it seems as though that because of the color of his skin, this is her feeling and I and I understand, she seemed like it's being fresh um brushed up under the rug because it doesn't get that same priority toy and part of the reason for that, and this was very gruesome um event, obviously, the murder of your nephew. Chicago. The politicians there, and I'm sure you would agree, have
completely failed the citizens. And it's become a weekly or daily occurrence of bullets piercing through skin and that's all it is to them, it seems to be, so why do why is it that people continue to support the same the Kim Fox, the Lordy life to the world, the ones who aren't making a difference. Is these politicians? Why do people continue to support them in the city of Chicago knowing that they have not gotten any results. Could it possibly be not necessarily that they're getting so
much support. Is that so many people are desensipized and they don't support at all. So that makes the small amount that do support things so large because there are so many people that do not vote. There are so many people that do not vote. Because I talked to people that have not voted. My vote don't make no difference. But how you know your vote don't make no different Your one vote could be the vote that made the difference. They feel that there is no change, They feel that
things are still gonna be the same. It's going to be the same thing. There's going to be people making decisions for low income people that are not low income. There's a there's people making decisions for people that have five and six people living in their households and they're living in a mansion. They want people to make decisions that live the life that they live. You go on the West side of Chicago, you can ride down Madison Street. Tell me how many groceries, schools for food markets you
see in the black neighborhoods. Yeah, their food, their food, deserts. You got corncus need I mean, what restaurants do you have? I mean they feel that you're taking away everything from them, So why should they vote. It won't make a difference. We're talking to Rochelle's Sykes, who's fifteen year old nephew was tragically murdered in Chicago, who got much more with her on the unsolved case. In the violence in Chicago more broadly, right after break it's not making sense at
all the policy decisions that are being made. It's not making sense, and it's actually making so many other people in the community less safe in the city of Chicago.
It's it's beyond troubling, is disgusting, and I wish things could could change, but it doesn't seem as though there's been as much value on the black lives that matter and the folks who just like you mentioned you said, hey, these people are if you're walking down the street with a gun, that someone needs to call the police, if you know who the shoot is, they need to be
turned in. Those black lives matter, and if you if you don't, If you don't, then you're obviously saying, um, the antithesis of it that they don't matter in that case. So it really needs to be outraged full scale, not just with the people like you who you're you had this beloved nephew who died in a very gruesome way, who was murdered in a grucive way. But everyone needs to live their voice up. It needs to be a complete community that refused to capitulate to the gang members
who want to take over their neighborhoods. Absolutely, would you would you agree with that? I agree with that, And then they shouldn't have to live in their house and be afraid that if I turned you in, they're gonna tell you I turned you in, and then they're coming after me or I turned you in and you get to court and because the system is over proud, and they let you go, which has happened a number of times in Cook County, especially in the Cook County Jail
during the COVID area. A lot of folks were let out who went on to commit crimes. And that's not just in Cook County, but that's across the country. People were let out and they went on to commit other crimes, including killing people. You know, I want to ask you, because I know you're a woman of faith and you work for the new Mount Pilgrim Church in Chicago, how is your faith factored into how you've dealt with demetrius death.
That's the only thing that had count me. Um I Um was once asked and I had to look at myself and I did What did I forgive the person that killed the Matris? And I have to be honest, Even though I believe in God, I know God as ahead of my life, I don't forgive them. I feel sorry for them because there has to be something seriously wrong with you to do what you did and be able to sleep at night, because like I said, I haven't slept in five years. I leapt straight through a
night in five years. I can hear it that look what calling my name? I can hear him calling. So I feel sorry for you because there's no way you can be resting, and for everybody that hurts him and didn't say nothing. There's no way you could be wrestling. I wasn't there and I ain't resting. But if it wasn't for God, I don't think I would have bade it through this far. I don't even sit on that corner, poor weeds. I don't think I could put the events together.
That's God in me, and I knew that this outcome has something, something bigger. I don't know what it is, but I know it does. Now. What would you tell Demetrius if you can speak to him today, in this moment. I'm sorry T T let you down. I am so sorry because I always told him I would take care of him. I always told if you t T will
always be here for him. And I feel like I have failed him, and I would I. I just would say I am so sorry because you had to be through some tremendous pain for that to happen to you, and I am sorry. And if if I could trade places with him. I would trade places with him right down, because I don't know what he had was capable that could have been the next president. I am sorry. I would I am so sorry, And if I could trade places, I would trade places like I would beg he ever
looked to just take me and let him go. That is very tough to hear. But I can tell you right now you did not fail your nephew, not one bit. And I'm sure if he was here, he would thank you for continuing to fight on in his name, like there's so many other young people in Chicago who lost their lives and they didn't have Rochelle Sykes too, to chase down the police if you will, to try to get answers and work with politicians to try to get
something done, solve solve this, this hainous, hainous crime. So I'm sure he would be thankful for you being there for him and in the family as you have been. Thank you. Yeah, but it hurts so bad, I mean especially I don't know if it's the not knowing or do I really want enough? And I just my heart hurts to see all these young babies, you know, they don't know one day from another riding in the back of a car, and the next thing you know, they're
they're they're dead. I mean, you've got all these young mothers and fathers and I don't know where the term because you know you you took in my breath away. You took in my breath away. I mean, to give birth to a child, it's not an easy thing, and deniting raising one is even harder. And then someone else that has no care about life just can walk past and take all of that away from a person when
they killed. Do they know how prominent that is. You're hurting the person you killed, You're hurting all the other people who left behind, even your own family when they catch you. You got Mama at the courthouse crying, Grandma at the courthouse crying. We got cousins and stuff, gotta send you money, with money on your books, you got the person that was murdered. Family don't know how to put stuff together, don't know how to get it together.
I don't want how to make decisions from that moment forward, because all they knew was their child, their grandchild, their cousin, their nephews. They need to know the extent of that one decision that they made. It's not hurting that person you killed, it's hurting me everybody else because now this community is to us. Now, this lady get to go to the grocery store to get her groceries because somebody
killed somebody on the corner. Now you've got a whole lady that I can't get food in her own home. He had to go sit on her porch, can't stay play out in the streets. Something's gotta give. We gotta stand off of something because we're falling down for everything. Yes, ma'am, do you think you've ever run for public office? No, I'm honest. I'm honest, and unfortunately I might not have a good filter owner on my mouth, but I'm honest. I'm gonna tell it like it is. If it ain't right,
it ain't right. Yes, ma'am, and and and and I'm with you. And I want to thank you for sharing demetrius story. And as you fight on, um, I definitely want my listeners to be involved in the fight with you. So if you will let us know where can people donate or help in other ways to find justice for Demetrius. Well, Um, they can go into any US banks and give them justice for Demetrius Griffin Jr. He has an account set
up there. UM there's also a god funding page. We would love to have a a community youth center where we teach life skills till UM ages five to eighteen, help them apply for college and make sure they get into make sure they get a g D. If they need tutoring, if they need counseling. To um help provide
all of that for them. Um, they can do that, or they can just if they want to just send a check they can always then one to New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, but make it out to Justice for Demetrius and the addresses forty three oh one West Washington Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, six o six to food. They can do either you those and anything will help. And its Metrius, uh and you want to spell it for
folks how its spelled out? D E M E, T R I E S and Griffin g R I F F I N jor Okay, Well, we're gonna be praying for you certainly, and and and hope people donate to the to the cause especially, but we really appreciate your strength. I'm certain that your nephew is really, really thankful for what you've been able to do in keeping the family together and keeping his memory well and alive. Thank you so much for joining me on out Live with Gianna called well Okay, thank you so much. I want to
thank with your fights again for a powerful interview. If you enjoying the show, please leave us a reviewer with us with five stars on Apple Podcast. If you have any questions for me, please email me at out loud at gingristre sixty dot com and I'll try to answer them in our future episodes, and please sign up for my monthly newsletter at Gingristre sixty dot com slash out loud. You can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and
parlor at Giano Caldwell. And if you're interested in learning more about my story, please pick up a copy of my bestselling book title Taken for Granted, How Conservatism Can Win Back to the Americans at Liberalism Failed Special Thanks to our producer John Cassio, researcher Aaron Klingman, and executive producers Debbie Myers and speaker New Gingridge, part of the Gingrids three sixty network