Heartbreaking details about the three Oswego children killed last week in a rural Will County shooting in which their mother also died emerged Tuesday as family members prepared for a funeral later this week in Missouri.
Cassandra “Sandi” Vaughn, 11, was nicknamed “Commander Sander,” because she often organized back-yard games and basement plays involving friends and cousins, according to a death notice. Her sister, Abigayle “Abbi” Vaughn, 12, recently was invited to join a select soccer league as a goalie, the position her mother, Kimberly, 34, played as a child.
And Blake, 8, a Little League baseball player, had memorized a plethora of baseball statistics, including those about the St. Louis Cardinals.
Their father, Christopher Vaughn, 32, flagged down a passerby early Thursday morning on a frontage road near Interstate Highway 55 in Channahon Township and asked him to call 911. The mother and children were found dead in the family’s sport-utility vehicle.
Vaughn suffered minor gunshot wounds in his leg and has voluntarily submitted to Illinois State Police questioning three times. Police have declined to identify him as a suspect and have declined to say whether they believe his wife, who was shot once in the head, was a murder victim. Police continue to analyze forensic evidence.
Visitation for the four is scheduled from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday in Baue Funeral and Memorial Center, 3950 W. Clay St., St. Charles, Mo., with the funeral set for 1 p.m. Saturday in New Hope Presbyterian Church, 1580 Kisker Rd., St. Charles.
