'Monstrous' teen girl gang 'hitta' killed 17 in Chicago (2024)

Someone parked nine bullets into Gakirah Barnes on Chicago’s dystopian south side.

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In a tragic way, it was a sadly fitting departure from this mortal coil.

During her reign as the Windy City’s most feared female gangland assassin, Barnes allegedly sent as many as 17 people to the morgue.

And when her number came up in 2014, she was just 17 years old and forged by a lifetime packed with abuse and violence.

But how does a happy child with straight-A report cards become, as one cop called her, a “devilish, monstrous little girl.”

Before being taken off the board, Barnes had garnered thousands of followers on social media. Her hook was bragging about the blood-drenched lifestyle she appeared to thrive in.

According to a new Investigation Discovery documentary, Barnes had been a math protegee and even attended a specially-designated math and science school.

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Barnes, though, would never take the step up the ladder and away from her dismal surroundings.

She grew up in an area that was Gangster Disciples territory. Facing off against them, just streets over, was the equally notorious Black Disciples.

And kids like Barnes were caught in the middle of this urban Vietnam.

At first, she attended gang parties. As the body count in the brutal turf war mounted, she was lured into the life. She got protection and respect.

“Her friends started getting shot and I think that she got sucked into gang life and she realized that’s where she’s going to get respect and honour and the warm fuzzies that other kids get from playing basketball or playing chess or something in high school,” Chicago writer Frank Main said in the documentary.

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Gakirah Barnes would become the Gangster Disciples go-to hitter.

As fast as one of her speeding bullets, she soon developed a reputation for efficiency and bloodlust.

But pals say it wasn’t always that way and the teen had been driven to the streets by heartache.

When she was 13, one of her best friends — and fellow gangster — Shondale “Tooka” Gregory, was shot and killed by underworld rivals in 2011.

Adding insult to injury, the boy’s killers taunted him on social media. Toilet paper was photoshopped onto the dead teen’s casket.

Barnes became enraged at the “cyber-banging.”

Cops say the sickening image was incendiary for gang bangers.

And suspected triggerman Odee Perry, 20, was clipped later that year.

According to detectives, they believe it was a 13-year-old Barnes who took Perry off the board.

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“It gave her a giant reputation as a shooter,” Main told the documentary.

“If you are a teenager in a gang in Chicago and you kill somebody, your status rockets.”

The teen, who once wanted to be a social worker, was now a stone-cold killer who loved gloating about her exploits on social media — and flashing her bling.

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“She was a real badass gangster girl — every bit the definition,” former gang member and one-time friend Angalia Bianca said.

“For females, if you want to keep that kind of respect, she was never going to stop.”

But with every tit-for-tat murder over turf, respect or some other ridiculous reason, Barnes became more violent.

Her friends were being shot to death on the streets of the south side. And there was no letting up. Ever.

Months before her murder, another friend was slain by gang rivals.

She tweeted her pain: “Da pain unbearable.”

But her growing reputation for spilling blood also marked her for death.

That came on April 10, 2014.

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A hooded triggerman approached Gakirah and drilled her nine times.

The mortally-wounded teen crawled up the steps of a house nearby. She lost consciousness and was dead two hours later in hospital.

bhunter@postmedia.com

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