According to NBC Chicago, Pryor was standing outside with a 15-year-old boy when a vehicle pulled up and opened fire, hitting them both.
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Police said Pryor was not the intended target. Pryor’s sister says that their grandparents live in Englewood and that Pryor was leaving their place and walking to the bus stop with a friend when the drive-by shooter fired into a crowd of people. The model, 20-year-old Kaylyn Pryor, had recently become known as a local celebrity after winning the famous “Mario, Make Me a Model” 2015 contest hosted by Mario Tricoci just over a month before.
Pryor was shot in the armpit by the assailants and was pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m, just over 40 minutes after the reporting of the shooting.
Kaylyn Pryor models during the Mario Tricoci competition.
Just a few weeks before her death, Pryor posed in an anti violence campaign holding a teddy bear to represent the types of makeshift memorials, which usually include stuff animals and cards, left at the scene of a fatal shooting. “This touches every one of us who knew and worked with her. Kaylyn will be remembered for her kind and generous spirit”. Pryor was a novice to the modeling world; she had been studying at Robert Morris University and was an aspiring paralegal.
The Sun-Times’ Splash section profiled Pryor for its “Who to Watch” feature, saying that she was talks with modeling agencies to sign on full time.
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The man behind the contest, Italian native Mario Tricoci, began his fashion and beauty career in Europe before sweeping the Chicago-area with his first salon in Villa Park, Illinois.
