William Patterson planned to move away from Chicago on Tuesday.
He had just bought a new car. He had gone through his belongings, discarding those items not needed for the important things he planned in retirement-fishing and relaxing-in his hometown of Union Springs, Ala., population 4,765.
On Monday afternoon, Patterson, 67, was delivering to his brother the last of those superfluous possessions-two framed prints-when he was shot to death on the sidewalk in the Avalon Park neighborhood.
Police said they believe he was the victim of a gunman who has killed two other people in the past month and is suspected of robbing at least 10 others, mostly senior citizens.
Patterson was confronted by the robber about 1 p.m. outside his brother`s home. According to witnesses, he said he had no money and offered to give the man the two pictures, as well as the other things in his car he planned to take to Union Springs on Tuesday.
Instead of taking anything, the robber shot him in the head and the stomach.
Patterson`s brother, James, heard gunshots and went to his front door to see what was happening. He saw the robber standing over his brother`s body. As he turned to get his own gun, the man fired at him, and a bullet grazed him in the right side.
Patterson had been a sanitation worker for the City of Chicago for more than 20 years before retiring in June, his brother said. He decided to return to the Alabama town he had left more than 40 years before.
”He just wanted to go back down there and live a quiet life,” James Patterson recalled Tuesday.
”I was really going to miss him, but I wanted him to go if it was going to make him happy,” he said.
Police have identified two other men who may have been killed by Patterson`s assailant. Thomas Hodges, 69, was shot to death July 22 when robbed while parking his car in the garage at his home near 86th and Maryland Streets.
Jimmy Bramlett, 43, was found shot in the head outside his car at his East 89th Street home Aug. 2. He had just parked his car.
The victims usually have been confronted while getting in or out of their cars, said Sgt. Rich Kobel, of the Pullman Area violent crimes unit.
And since July 31, there have been at least 10 other armed robberies linked to the suspect in an area ranging from 83rd Street south to 98th Street and from Calumet Avenue west to Dorchester Avenue.
