A couple hundred mourners packed the seats at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Fuller Park on Tuesday morning to say their goodbyes to a Hazel Crest man and his two young daughters who were shot to death inside their Crescent Drive home earlier this month in what police believe to be a targeted hit.
Dionus Neely, 39, and his daughters Elle, 10, and Endia, 3, each suffered multiple gunshot wounds in the early morning hours of July 2 and were later pronounced dead at local hospitals, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Solemn family members, who milled about outside the church following the 10 a.m. funeral service that attracted a considerable police presence, remembered Neely as a jovial family man who was quick with a joke and always had a smile on his face.
“You would be so sad and he would just make you start, just bust out starting laughing,” Neely’s 20-year-old son Dakuarie Brandon said.
“He’d just turn a bad day into a good day.”
Brandon, Neely’s second oldest child and a half-brother to Elle and Endia, said he last saw his father at his aunt’s birthday celebration, a couple days before the fatal shootings.
His most cherished memories of Neely involve times his father demonstrated how much he cared for his children — rushing to Brandon’s aid after he fell off a motor bike, cheering him on at sporting events and attending his school functions at Homewood-Flossmoor High School.
“Whether it was a football game or a graduation, he was there,” Brandon said of his father. “He came to everything I did. Me any my brother and my sister. He supported us 100 percent.
“Even if he didn’t have a dollar, he still made sure he showed his face and made sure he let us know he loved us.”
Hazel Crest police said Tuesday that there had been no arrests and no new developments in the triple slaying, which is being investigated by the Hazel Crest Police Department with assistance from the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force.
During a press conference last week, Hazel Crest Police Chief Mitchell Davis III encouraged anyone with information about the case to come forward. The department is offering a $5,000 reward for any tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the killings.
Officials, who believe Neely was the intended target of the shooting, are examining his background for clues about a possible motive.
Court records indicate that he had a history of drug convictions, but family and friends denied that he was currently caught up in any criminal activity.
“Dionus, he was a beautiful person. He was a family man,” said his cousin, Lakisha Hill, 36, chuckling at the memory of his smile.
“That’s what I’ll miss most about him, too,” she said. “When he talked, he smiled. No matter what.”
Hill said that growing up she spent summers with Neely at her aunt’s house on the South Side, and still fondly remembers the time a 9-year-old Neely charmed her into parting with a prized Halloween costume.
“He was like, ‘Cuz, could I have that costume?'” she recalled. “I said, ‘Cuz, I love this costume, but I love you more. You can have it.”
As adults, the cousins often bumped into one another at the Majestic and Ameristar casinos in northwest Indiana, where Neely frequented the craps tables, she said.
“If he came and I lost all my money, he’d give me money to gamble. And if he lost and he’d see me, I’d give him my money,” Hill said. “We was some gamblers.”
She said she knew something was terribly wrong when her oldest cousin called her the morning of the murders, because she generally only reaches out when there’s been a death in the family.
“That just really tore me up,” Hill said of learning that not only Neely, but two of his daughters had been shot. “I couldn’t even get out of the bed that day.”
Since the slayings, she said she’s had a hard time even being around her family because the situation is too painful.
Hill said the family has no idea why Neely might have been targeted and said she wasn’t aware of any feuds or enemies he might have had. She is, however, concerned about more violence befalling the family.
“I was scared today,” she said. “I didn’t know who was going to ride up. I didn’t know who was walking up and who was who, who knows who. So it was scary.”
Neely is survived by his wife, Erin Ross, and six children, said Brandon, who called Neely “the best dad ever.”
“Man, I miss my pops so much,” he said. “I still can’t believe. I’ve been talking about this for a week straight and it’s unreal.”
Brandon said the pain he feels over the loss of his father and two sisters is indescribable.
“It ain’t no emotion, to be honest,” he said. “If you lost a dad and two sisters you would know what I’m talking about and you could compare to me, you could relate. But if you haven’t been through this situation, you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know anything about it.”
zkoeske@tribpub.com
Twitter: @ZakKoeske
