Ruby Humphrey, 57, was stabbed to death on the street in the 3100 block of West Taylor Street on Chicago's West Side late on Tuesday, November 13, 2018. News reports described the area as Lawndale; the Sun-Times homicide tracker places it in the East Garfield Park community area. She lived a few blocks away. The Chicago Police Department investigated, and Area North detectives were assigned to the case.
Officers responding to a call of a person down found her at 11:11 p.m. with stab wounds to her head and neck, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office. An Associated Press report said she had been stabbed in the back, head and neck. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and an autopsy found she died of multiple sharp force injuries. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Her killing was the first of three fatal stabbings of older people over eight days on the West Side.
Two days later, Jose Refugio Ceja was stabbed on South Keeler Avenue, and on November 20, Ronald Rockett was stabbed in a building vestibule on South Christiana Avenue. Police released surveillance video of a hooded man near the third attack, and on December 2, 2018, they arrested Darius Mayze, 24. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said all the victims were in their 50s or 60s, were stabbed several times near Roosevelt Road, and appeared to have been attacked at random. Mayze was charged with murder in Rockett's death in December 2018 and in Ceja's death in December 2019. The Chicago Tribune reported that police considered him a suspect in Humphrey's killing, and in December 2019 the Sun-Times reported that prosecutors were "also looking at" her death. No charge in her case has been reported, and Mayze has not been accused in court of killing her.
Coverage of the stabbings focused on the series and the suspect, and almost nothing about Ruby Humphrey's own life was published. No obituary or family fundraiser could be found that can be tied to her with certainty. She was a woman in her late 50s walking near her own neighborhood late on a weeknight, and the people who knew her there likely remember her well.
Taylor Street and Kedzie Avenue meet on the West Side a few blocks north of Roosevelt Road, in an area of brick two-flats, small businesses and vacant lots near the Homan Square and Lawndale neighborhoods. Someone who was at that corner on the night of November 13 may have seen her in her final minutes, or seen who was near her.
Chicago recorded about 580 homicides in 2018 and about 500 in 2019. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in 2019 and the years that followed, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
No criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Ruby Humphrey could be found in news archives or public records. More than 7 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Although police publicly identified a suspect in the series of stabbings, nothing has been filed in court over her death. Anyone who was near Taylor Street and Kedzie Avenue that night, or who saw Ruby Humphrey earlier that evening, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Chicago Police Department's anonymous tip line at (833) 408-0069 or submit a tip online at CPDTIP.com, or contact Cook County Crime Stoppers at (800) 535-STOP (7867).
