TINLEY PARK - Police continued their manhunt Sunday for a gunman who herded five women into the back room of a strip mall clothing store, killed them during a botched robbery and vanished after walking out of the shop's front door. | Photo gallery

At the Brookside Marketplace on Sunday, police tape flapped in the wind in front of the boarded-up Lane Bryant store where the shootings occurred. Meanwhile, mourners brought flowers as shoppers returned to the mall and tried to make sense Sunday of the brutal killings.

A tear rolled down Cindy Sorenson's cheek as she brought a bouquet of bright red roses to the Lane Bryant store Sunday morning.

Sorenson, who works as a store manager at a nearby mall in this community of nearly 60,000 people, said she didn't know any of the victims, but couldn't stop thinking about the women who died.

"Your job is your home," the 34-year-old Tinley Park resident said. "You spend so much time in a store and you never think anything like this will happen."

Officers found the victims at the back of the Lane Bryant store after getting a 911 call around 10:45 a.m.

Tinley Park Police Chief Mike O'Connell said a bystander told officers that he had seen a stocky black man, about 5-foot-9, who was wearing a black winter coat, a knit cap and dark pants.

O'Connell said the victims included at least one store employee, but he declined to identify them until the Will County Coroner's office performed autopsies some time Sunday. O'Connell did say, though, that the victims ranged in age from 22 to 37. He said four were from suburban Chicago and one was from South Bend, Ind.

"We do not want to compromise any evidence that may be out there … I ask we keep family of the victims in our thoughts and prayers," O'Connell said.

Police planned a 2 p.m. media conference to provide an update on the attack and the Will County coroner's office hadn't released the victim's identities.

But family members were beginning to identified the slain.

The family of 33-year-old Carrie Hudek Chiuso said the Frankfort woman was one of the victims.

"She is the most wonderful person, and that maniac took a piece of all of us," Jennifer Hudek, the victim's sister-in-law, told the Chicago Tribune.

Hudek declined to comment Sunday.

Chiuso, a 1993 graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor High School, was a social worker at the school.

"Carrie was deeply loved by faculty and staff," said school spokesman Dave Thieman in a statement. "She had a real touch with students. The entire H-F family is deeply saddened."

Officers swept through neighboring shops at the strip mall in this southwestern Chicago suburb shortly after the shootings Saturday, but found no trace of the gunman.

Attempts to find him with dogs and a helicopter equipped with infrared sensors also failed, authorities said.

In a Target store across the parking lot from Lane Bryant, terrified customers were herded to the front as police with pistols and rifles drawn went up and down the aisles and into storerooms searching for the gunman.

"I was so scared I couldn't think," said Selena Kujawa, who had just entered the store with her 5-year-old son when it was locked down. After about an hour, customers were told to leave.

"They told us to get in our cars and get out of here," Kujawa said.

Meanwhile, the Chicago police department warned its officers to pay attention to strip malls and other Lane Bryant stores, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

Tinley Park police Sgt. T.J. Grady said investigators were trying to determine if there was video from security cameras mounted at nearby stores. O'Connell said the Lane Bryant store did not have a camera.

Police were allowing some shoppers into parts of the strip mall later Saturday, but had cordoned off the store.

Tracy Caccavella was shopping at a Pet Smart store late Saturday morning across the parking lot from the Lane Bryant when she saw police enter the pet supply store.

"Six police entered the store with their hands on their gun holsters," Caccavella said.

The small red and brown brick Lane Bryant is part of a cluster of four or five stores isolated on one side of a large blacktop parking lot, with big box stores including Target and a Best Buy several hundred yards away.

A message left Sunday with a spokeswoman for Lane Bryant's parent company, Bensalem, Pa.-based Charming Shoppes Inc., was not immediately returned Sunday.