Notorious Oak Lawn Killer Dies in Prison

Ricardo Harris walked into an Oak Lawn liquor store on May 13, 1999, and gunned down four people without a word. The store owners died, and two gravely wounded sisters played dead until Harris left the store with a thousand dollars in his hand.

Death has come full circle as the "black-hearted" killer died in his prison cell last Thursday at the age of 59.

Harris could have walked into Extra Value Liquors on Cicero Avenue and 90th Street and robbed the place without firing a shot. But he opened fire on store owners Dipak Patel and Ambalal Patel and sisters Helen and Christina Chisnick. After he was found guilty, Judge David Sterba uttered these words to Harris "There are certain people in this world who stand out among all others and who epitomize endless evil. .. You are such a person.”

Two days after the Oak Lawn murders, police got a tip from a drug dealer who said Harris tried to sell him a handgun that looked like the one used in the murders — one Harris took from a Michigan sheriff's deputy when he escaped from jail there a week prior. After being profiled on "America's Most Wanted," the law tracked down  Harris in North Carolina where he was living under an assumed name.

He was convicted in 2004 and sent to Death Row, a sentence that was commuted to life in prison when Illinois abolished the death penalty.

In a Southtown news story published in 2008, a reporter noted that Oak Lawn's former police chief, Bill Villanova, kept a copy of Harris' mug shot in his office — to remember an investigation that was "a great team effort."

Oak Lawn's current chief, Michael Murray, led the investigation along with retired detective Al Kowalczyk.