Barbara Jimerson, 53, was stabbed to death on Monday, February 15, 2021, inside an apartment building in the 300 block of East 68th Street in Park Manor, part of the Greater Grand Crossing community area on the city's South Side. Area One detectives of the Chicago Police Department investigated.
She was found face down and unresponsive about 6:05 p.m. in the hallway of an apartment, Chicago police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The Cook County medical examiner's office identified her and said she lived in Park Manor. An autopsy the next day found she had died of multiple sharp force injuries and ruled her death a homicide. Police did not say who found her or whether she lived in that building.
No description of a suspect, no weapon and no motive were made public, and no arrest was reported. Police did not say whether there were signs of a struggle, a robbery or a forced entry.
No reward tied to her case could be found.
Little about Barbara Jimerson's life has been made public, and no obituary or family fundraiser could be found for this account. Her name was included in a social media post by Black Femicide US, an advocacy group that tracks killings of Black women, which described her stabbing in Chicago on February 15, 2021, though it gave her age as 63 rather than the 53 reported by the medical examiner. An online obituary for a Chicago man named Jessie "Pipe" Armstrong lists a wife, Barbara Jimerson, with the year 2021, but it gives no other details, and it is not clear whether she is the same woman.
Park Manor is a South Side neighborhood of brick bungalows, two-flats and courtyard apartment buildings within the Greater Grand Crossing community area. The 300 block of East 68th Street lies a short walk from the busy commercial corridors around 69th Street and King Drive. A building hallway in the early evening is a place where neighbors, delivery drivers or visitors may have seen someone arrive or leave.
Barbara Jimerson was one of about 800 people killed in Chicago in 2021, the deadliest year in the city in a quarter century. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of the city's homicides in those years, and that figure counts cases closed without anyone being charged. With so many killings to investigate, cases with few public details often faded from the news within days. Most homicide victims in Chicago are men, and the killing of a woman in her own neighborhood stands out.
Cases like this can still be solved. In July 2021, Chicago police charged two people in the October 2020 stabbing of Sebastian Bobak in Humboldt Park, and a man in the November 2020 stabbing of Malcolm Mullins in Chatham, months after the first news reports had faded.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Barbara Jimerson could be found in news archives or public records. More than 5 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived in or visited the building on East 68th Street that day, or who knew who she had been with in the hours before she was found, 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).
