Freund Funeral Home

J. Freund, whose brutal murder has brought the community together in mourning.“A.J.’s turned into everybody’s little boy, as a community, as a nation,” Davenport Funeral Home director Kim Nordin said.A public visitation for A.J. was scheduled for 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at Davenport Funeral Home, at 419 E. Terra Cotta Ave., and hundreds of people had lined up outside before the doors opened. Police have said they’re expecting a massive turnout, and asked anyone not attending the visitation to avoid the area.The owners of Davenport Funeral Home volunteered their services for A.J.’s visitation after he was found dead and his parents were charged with beating him to death. They said, since then, they’ve received calls from all over the country from people asking how they can help.“It’s just been an overwhelming response from the community. People have called from all over the country, and they just want to help. They want to look for any way they can help, and to honor him, and anything that they can do,” funeral home owner Jack Davenport said.Nearby businesses offered their parking lots to those attending the visitation, and the owner of Twisted Stem flower shop next door was planning to make hundreds of blue bows for mourners to hang throughout Crystal Lake in honor of A.J.“I have cuts in my fingers from the ribbon at this stage,” florist John Regan said. “My goal is, by noontime time today, I will have made a thousand bows.”The owner of this Crystal Lake flower shop hopes to make up to a thousand ribbons before noon today. Free of charge. The ribbons will be placed around town in honor of AJ Freund. His public visitation is at 1pm. @cbschicago pic.twitter.com/CfQPynliiW— Mugo Odigwe (@MugoOdigwe) May 3, 2019It’s a simple but much-needed gesture for a boy gone too soon, a child Regan never even met.“It still is a very kind of simple gesture. It’s not as though I invented making bows, but it’s what I could do, and it’s something I could offer,” Regan said.Comfort dogs will be at A.J.’s visitation to greet mourners waiting in line inside...