An Indiana mother is being remembered as a hero after she was shot and killed while trying to protect her teenage son during a Facebook Marketplace robbery.
Jean Gragg, 40, was on the front porch of her Edison Park home near the University of Notre Dame on June 10 when her son met with 18-year-old John Ford to sell a watch, South Bend police said.
The sale was supposed to be simple. Gragg’s son had used Facebook Marketplace before and had arranged to meet Ford just before 10 p.m.
But the ordinary online deal quickly turned into a nightmare.
According to police, Ford was inspecting the watch when he allegedly pulled out a handgun. That’s when Gragg jumped in to protect her son.
“When Jean stepped in to support her son, the man went over the edge,” family friend Debra McKinley wrote on a GoFundMe page.
Gragg reportedly put herself between the two teens, pushed the suspected gunman away and forced him off her property.
As she walked back up the driveway toward her home, Ford allegedly opened fire, shooting multiple rounds as her terrified family watched.
One bullet struck Gragg in the head.
Security cameras nearby reportedly captured the horrific moment Gragg collapsed to the ground while the gunman ran away.
Gragg was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition. Days later, she was declared brain-dead and taken off life support on June 13.
Her devastated son called her “my superhero” in an interview with WNDU.
Friends and family say Gragg, who worked as an office manager for H&R Block, lived for her son and died doing what she had always done: protecting him.
“She was a nurturer,” her family wrote in an online obituary. “If anyone close to her was sick, you could count on her to take excellent care of you.”
They added that Gragg was “a dedicated, wonderful mother, very loving and caring, always putting her son first down to her very last breath.”
Her son, they said, “was her whole world.”
Police later tracked Ford to an apartment complex about two miles from the shooting scene. Investigators also found the suspected gun dumped over a fence at the complex.
During questioning, Ford allegedly admitted he shot at Gragg, according to police.
He has been charged with murder, attempted murder and robbery.
Ford is being held without bond at the St. Joseph County Jail.
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