Stephanie Lopez Ramirez was a 17-year-old Hispanic girl described by those who knew her as sweet, happy, and full of life. A family friend said she "loved her family very much." Stephanie had been in the United States for about two years, and her father had recently arrived from Colombia in search of a better life for them. Instead, the family was met with tragedy and heartbreak.
On Tuesday, October 1, 2024, around 12:30 p.m., police in Chicago, Illinois, responded to a call at an apartment in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. Inside the residence, located in the 700 block of North Avers Avenue, they found Stephanie unresponsive. She had suffered a single gunshot wound to her left arm that penetrated her chest. Stephanie was pronounced dead at the scene, and the medical examiner later ruled her death a homicide.
A person of interest, 19-year-old Juan David Ramirez-Olivo, was in the apartment with Stephanie when the shooting occurred. He was taken into custody at the scene.
Ramirez-Olivo, a Colombian national who had been paroled into the United States, told authorities the shooting was an accident. However, a Chicago Police Department source and a friend of Stephanie’s family both questioned his claim. The police source stated that Ramirez-Olivo was likely in illegal possession of a gun he had purchased on the street.
The investigation revealed that Ramirez-Olivo had previous encounters with law enforcement. Police records showed he had been arrested in March for possession of a knife and had also been accused of a previous stabbing. Following his arrest in connection with Stephanie’s death, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an immigration detainer against him on October 3, 2024.
Juan David Ramirez-Olivo was arrested for first-degree murder. As of October 2024, he was being held in the Cook County Jail pending local charges. In the wake of her death, Stephanie's family made plans to send her body back to Colombia for burial. A GoFundMe page was created to help with the funeral expenses, remembering Stephanie as a "sweet girl who brought so much love and light into this world."
