Police say gun was used in Hudson slayings

CHICAGO (AP) — Police confirmed Friday they found the gun used in the killings of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew, as the family's South Side community prepared a public memorial to say goodbye.

The .45-caliber gun was discovered Wednesday in a vacant lot in the West Side neighborhood where the body of Hudson's 7-year-old nephew Julian King was found a few days earlier inside an SUV. The bodies of Hudson's 57-year-old mother Darnell Donerson and her 29-year-old brother Jason Hudson were discovered in the family's home Oct. 24.

"The weapon has been positively identified through forensic examination as the weapon that was used in the homicides," Police Superintendent Jody Weis said at an unrelated Friday news conference.

Nobody has been charged in the killings, but 27-year-old William Balfour, the estranged husband of Hudson's sister, is in custody on a parole violation. Police have called Balfour, a convicted felon, a "person of interest."