CHICAGO _ David Brown exited the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago at 79th Street and passed ambulances and police cars surrounded by yellow crime tape.
Brown, a minister at a South Side church, assumed it was a shooting and drove on to his home a few blocks away in West Chatham without giving it much thought.
He later learned he has passed the scene of his wife's death.
Julia Callaway, 55, had been walking in the 7900 block of South Lafayette Avenue around 5:55 p.m. Thursday when a gray Nissan fleeing police hit her and another pedestrian, according to Chicago police. She died about half an hour later at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Three suspects are in custody.
"She was a beautiful, sweet, loving woman," Brown said Friday morning. "She was a housewife. She never bothered anyone."
Brown said his wife hadn't been home when he got there, but he assumed she was out picking up their grandchild. Then the daycare called and told him his wife never made it to pick the child up.
"I started panicking," the minister said.
He called police, gave officers his wife's name and learned she was killed just a quarter of a mile from their home.
Brown, who ministers at the Shiloh Baptist Church at 7058 S. Racine, said he feels numb. He had been planning to take his wife, the mother of their two children, shopping for Mother's Day when he got home.
"Now I have to go bury my wife," he said. "I can't believe it's my wife."
Police said officers started chasing the Nissan after it fled a traffic stop. "We got a car taking off on us, going eastbound on 81," an officer radioes.
The officers followed the car onto Cottage Avenue and then to 79th Street, where they told the dispatcher they had given up the chase as the car kept going up Cottage. The Nissan was spotted minutes later on the Dan Ryan, then an officer radioes about a crash at 79th and LaFayette.
"We got three running. Got a red top, black top, he's got a blue top. They're all running westbound," an officer says.
While officers radio where the three are running, a call is made for two ambulances for Callaway and a 30-year-old man. The man was treated on the scene.
Three suspects were later arrested, and police said drugs were found in the car. No charges had been filed as of Friday morning.
Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the officers had attempted "a simple traffic stop when the offenders fled. A description was given out of the vehicle and another unit located it."
He did not say why the officers decided to stop the Nissan. The car was a rental and was not reported stolen. "But investigators have not been able to verify that the individuals driving had permission to be in the car," he tweeted.
