Lilly Bova<\/a>, 16, was finishing up her sophomore year at Glenbrook South High School.<\/p>\nA day after Lilly’s life was taken, her dad and friends were trying to navigate their sudden loss as they pleaded for justice in what they called a murder.<\/p>\n
As he set out photos of his daughter on frames in the grass on Sunday, Anthony Bova said he will always remember her as the little girl who liked to dress up.<\/p>\n
“She could do anything. She was into everything,” said Anthony Bova. “She was a good person.”<\/p>\n
Lilly was learning to drive. In fact, her dad took her to The Grove in Glenview a couple of weeks ago to practice.<\/p>\n
“She was gorgeous,” said Madilynn Mendoza. “She was the prettiest girl I knew.”<\/p>\n
Madilynn was a lifelong friend of Lilly’s, and lived next to Lilly in the Salem Walk apartments, near Milwaukee and Lake avenues.<\/p>\n
“I’m her neighbor,” Madilynn said. “I could see into her window.”<\/p>\n
Lilly’s dad said she lived in the complex with her older sister. The Cook County Sheriff’s police said Lilly was shot there around 11 a.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Sheriff’s office said Lilly ended up dying at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.<\/p>\n
Authorities have not provided information on the circumstances that led up to the shooting, or whether Lilly knew her shooter or if the shooting was random.<\/p>\n
Laila Milanovic and Sasha Banaban are two of Lilly’s Glenbrook South classmates.<\/p>\n
“We have a piece of her shirt,” Laila said. “We cut into a bracelet.”<\/p>\n
Laila and Sasha said they met Lilly only a couple of years ago, but her personality was infectious.<\/p>\n
“Her energy. She’s so bubbly \u2014 she brings a smile to everyone’s face,” said Sasha. “When she walks in a room, everyone wants to talk to her and be around her.”<\/p>\n
“We’re going to be like Lilly,” added Laila. “We’re going to live like her. We’re going to bring her energy. We’re going to bring her love into this world.”<\/p>\n
In a letter to families, Glenbrook South High School officials wrote: “Though Lilly was a quiet spirit, her teachers and those who knew her best said she loved deeply and was bright, positive and mature beyond her years. Her kind-hearted and optimistic nature will be sorely missed.”<\/p>\n
Grief counselors were to be available Monday at Glenbrook South High School as the community continues to mourn.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Youth Peace & Justice Foundation, also known as The Uvalde Foundation For Kids, said Sunday that it will plant a tree in Lilly’s honor. The tree will be planted in the Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina as part of the foundation’s Trees for Peace Initiative.<\/p>\n
The foundation is also offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Bova’s murder.<\/p>\n
Anyone with information is asked to call Cook County Sheriff’s police detectives at 708-865-4896.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n
In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cook County Sheriff’s police detectives were searching for a person of interest Sunday after a teenager was shot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,159483,3,2079,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-554169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-glenview","tag-news","tag-shooting","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}