Jillian Schappa struggled to live on her own after coming to Chicago from Michigan to attend college.
But she found a place in Uptown through Thresholds, an organization that provides health care, housing and other services to people with mental health issues, according to her mother.
A friend said she was in good spirits when he last saw her Saturday morning. Hours later, paramedics found her in an alley behind her apartment building in the 4900 block of North Kenmore Avenue.
She was lying on her back and told the paramedics, “Someone pushed me,” according to a police report. She suffered head trauma and fractures to her spine, pelvis and feet.
Schappa, 31, was unconscious by the time officers arrived at St. Francis Hospital, where she had been taken in critical condition.
Police said they went to the building and found the door to her 5th floor apartment unlocked and a window open.
Schappa died two days later. Police have reported no one in custody.
The family said police have provided no details about the case, and Schappa’s mother is asking the public for any information .
“If anyone is a friend that could maybe enlighten all of us, we wish they would come forward,” said her mother, Lori Schappa.
Schappa came to Chicago to take classes at Harold Washington College for an associate degree. She transferred to DePaul University but began to struggle when classes were moved fully online, her mother said.
“She has struggled with mental health for a very long time and has wanted to do everything by herself,” her mother said. “She’s a fiercely independent woman.”
Thresholds helped place Schappa in an apartment at the Kenmore Avenue building, where she lived alone. Schappa did not have many friends there, her mother said, but there was a man who lived in the building and looked out for her.
The man told her mother he had seen Schappa on Saturday morning and she seemed to be doing well. He was “totally shocked” by the news, her mother said.
A resident of the third floor in the building told the Sun-Times that Schappa was “a sweetheart.”
Her mother had held out hope that her daughter would survive. On Monday, she said Schappa was unconscious but the hospital was performing tests.
“She is in bad shape,” her mother said.
Schappa was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. Monday, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Thresholds said it could not comment on Schappa’s case, citing privacy laws, but released a statement saying “our thoughts are with her and her family during this time.”
Contributing: Rosemary Sobol
