The widow and son of former Cook County Commissioner Dennis Deer were found dead inside the family’s home on the city’s West Side Tuesday night, police said.
According to police sources, killed were Barbara Deer, 54, and Kaleb Deer, 23, one of the couple’s twin sons.
Garfield Park neighbors and elected officials mourn wife and son of former Cook County commissioner
Police responded to the family home on the 3500 block of West Arthington Street just before 6 p.m. after neighbors spotted the family dog outside for several hours. After Chicago Fire Department officials breached the home, police found the mother and son dead in the family’s basement.
The woman was found with three gunshot wounds to her chest, while the man was shot in the head, police said. Both were pronounced on scene. Police recovered a weapon.
Outside the Arthington home, four police squad cars and a Sprinter van lined the street as about two dozen people milled about the area. In the shadows of the glowing blue police lights, bystanders embraced one another across from the crime scene. Relatives declined to comment.
Dennis Deer, a therapist with a Ph.D. in Christian psychology, ran a drug treatment and counseling center in Lawndale before joining the Cook County Board in 2017. He died in June 2024 at age 51 following a double lung transplant due to a genetic condition in which his chest organs were backward.
The Deers had been married for 27 years after first meeting as students at Collins Academy High School, according to a 2025 article with The Triibe.
After her husband’s death, Barbara Deer applied to be appointed to fill out his term on the county board. Party officials chose former Ald. Michael Scott Jr. She pledged to promote economic development, job creation, and expanded access to affordable health care, including mental and behavioral health. She said she worked closely with her husband on legislation he cared about.
Barbara Deer was a speech language pathologist for nearly two decades at Chicago Public Schools, CEO of the consulting company Metamorphosis Health and headed the nonprofit Juneteenth Illinois.
She studied communication disorders at Jackson State and received her master’s degree in speech language pathology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.
Dennis Deer headed up the county’s health and hospitals committee, where he backed resolutions to declare both mental health and racism public health crises and disclosed his own experience with post-traumatic stress from witnessing a death when he was 10 years old.
Last year, the Lawndale Christian Legal Center named its multi-million dollar transition center in North Lawndale the Dr. Dennis Deer Community Justice Center.
Harrison Area detectives were investigating the deaths.
Tribune reporter A.D. Quig contributed to this report.
