Natalya Malone remembers the vigil for her 15-year-old son. The night after Deontae was slain in 2011, friends and family showed up at 65th and Mozart streets in the Marquette Park neighborhood to pray for peace.

So did Andrew Holmes, a prominent anti-violence activist and future village of Dolton trustee who has approached families at crime scenes for years, often briefing reporters and offering financial rewards for finding the killers. At Deontae’s vigil, Holmes “just popped up” and asked questions about her son, Malone recalled.

“After that, he disappeared,” Malone said. “He never came around.”

For more than a decade, Holmes has become so well-known for anti-violence work that former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel once declared an “Andrew Holmes Day.” TV host Steve Harvey hailed him as

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