Thirty-year-old Chris Murphy never expected a man to break into his home in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, let alone do it in broad daylight.
“It was a Monday, a busy street. People were out and about on the sidewalk,” he explained of the May 13 attack.
When he walked into his apartment, located on Diversey Parkway, he immediately knew something was off.
The man charged with the crime is 30-year-old Kabaar Venson. He held a revolver to Murphy’s head.
“He walks up to me and puts the gun against my temple, moves me into the bedroom and that’s when I see that my other roommate is already hog tied on the ground.”
Murphy was next.
The suspect tied him up, too. He asked Murphy for money, his bank cards and pin numbers. Murphy gave them all.
“He has the gun and I think he’s going to suffocate us… it’s a home invasion… I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was going to die,” he said.
Murphy said the crime unfolded in a matter of minutes.
Court documents showed Venson was released from jail earlier this month after serving seven years for a home invasion he committed in 2016, in the same neighborhood.
Now, Venson is behind bars again, as Murphy grapples with the trauma from the crime he survived.
“I’m definitely not in a routine. I’m waking up every 30 minutes. I got a little bit of medicine to help me sleep,” he said. “I go from paycheck to paycheck, and now I have to figure out a new place to live, therapy, all kind of stuff.”
Venson will be back in court on June 7.
A fundraising page has been set up to help Murphy in wake of the incident.