8-Year-Old Girl Found Fatally Stabbed

July 16, 2008 — -- Chicago police are searching for a suspect in the death of an 8-year-old girl who was found brutally stabbed in the alley outside her home on the city's South Side earlier this week.

Mya Lyons was found fatally stabbed in an alley behind her home Monday evening, according to Chicago police.

According to ABC's Chicago affiliate WLS, Mya was found by her father, Richard Lyons, after he noticed she was not in her bed Monday night. He searched the neighborhood and then found her in the alley.

According to WLS, Lyons placed his young daughter in his car and drove her to Jackson Park Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The girl usually lives with her mother in Addison, Ill., a Chicago suburb, but was visiting her father for the summer.

"My heart is heavy. And if anybody knows anything, I beg you to come out," Lyons told WLS. "Love your kids. No matter how much you think you can protect them, that you can hold them, that you can keep them safe, it's just not true."

The killing comes during a particularly violent year for Chicago, according to police department statistics.

From January to June, there were 229 homicides in Chicago versus 203 homicides in the same period last year.

Chicago Police Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti attributed the "slight rise" to nine instances when one incident claimed multiple victims.

"We've had nine multiple homicides," Ursitti said. "That has accounted for an increase number of a victims."

Particularly troubling for Chicagoans this summer have been shootings linked to gang violence, but according to Jim Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission, Lyons' father's residence was not in a "bad area."

"It happened in a neighborhood that has not been known as a dangerous area in the past and has not had a lot of problems with gang activity," Wagner said. "The problem we've been having in Chicago this summer has centered around shootings committed by those people that are in gangs in some of our most volatile neighorhoods. I don't on the surface think that this would fit into that pattern at all.

"This young girl was not in a bad area and she doesn't seem to be the victim of random violence," he said.

Medical Examiner: Girl Was Not Sexually Assaulted

Despite several reports indicating otherwise, the young girl was not sexually assaulted, the Cook County Medical Examiner told ABCNews.com.

"Her cause of death is multiple injuries due to assault. The matter is a homicide," a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office said.

Police have canvassed the neighborhood and are actively looking for suspects, according to Chicago Police Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti.

"This is still an ongoing homicide investigation. No one is in custody at this time," Ursitti said. "There's been a community alert sent out. We're definitely looking for any information from the community."

Neighbors told WLS that they saw the girl standing on the home's front porch about 9:30 p.m. Monday. "Just a sweet, average girl, went around, playing, jump rope and bikes. I will never understand it. It will never make sense to me," said neighbor Nakia Akins.

"She comes to our house and plays all the time. She's a very sweet little girl, never did anything to anybody," another neighbor, Constance Morgan, told WLS.

The murder drew strong words from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

"Let's get this individual, put him in jail for the rest of his life or give him the death penalty," Daley said in an unrelated press conference.

Orlando Barnes, Lyons' grandfather, told WLS that he just hopes the suspect is found and that the mystery of his granddaughter's death is solved.

"I'm hoping and praying they catch this person or persons that did this. She didn't deserve this. She did not deserve this," Barnes said.