Downers Grove Police went to Kasten’s home at about 6:50 p.m. on Monday, after receiving a call for a teenager who did not respond, the department said in a press release. Gwen was dead, the first correspondents were found and the DuPage County Medical Examiner’s Office was called. Her death is being investigated. Casten’s office issued a brief statement Monday night. “The Casten family is calling for privacy and we will not comment further on this heartbreaking moment,” the statement said in part. A spokesman for Casten, who serves in the 6th District and is seeking re-election this year, declined to comment further. A recent graduate of Downers Grove North High School, Gwen Casten was an honorary student and fellow in Illinois. He worked with the Downers Grove North Empowerment Club and the student newspaper Omega. Last year, she and her father wrote about the January 6, 2021 uprising in the US Capitol for Omega. Gwen was also a leader in the student-led March For Our Lives weapons control team. Earlier this month, Sean Casten said in an interview with Newsy that Gwen, in response to the mass shootings at schools, had run a program to teach teens how to heal from gunshot wounds.
“I am both very proud that my daughter took the initiative to organize it and it is a great shame that we as a country take on the responsibility of the children to do what the United States senators do not have the courage to do themselves. said Casten, a staunch supporter of arms control. Gwen – along with her mother, Kara, and sister, Ondrej – was on her father’s side when she was first sworn in as a Member of Parliament in January 2019. Gwen appeared earlier this month in a digital ad highlighting her father’s legislative priorities. She was also involved in her father’s 2020 campaign. Now running for a third term in Congress, Sean Casten faces La Grange U.S. MP Marie Newman and Chicago-based business engineer Nicor Gas Charles Hughes in the June 28 Democratic primary for the 6th constituency. Newman is now serving in the 3rd, but chose to run in the 6th, after the legal limits were redefined last year. The Casten campaign has temporarily suspended its television commercials. The Newman campaign also stops all ads comparing the two candidates. “My heart goes out to the Casten family for the devastating loss of their daughter,” Newman said in an email Monday night. “My prayers are with Sean, Kara and the whole Kasten family.” Hughes also expressed his family’s condolences in an email. Highland Park’s U.S. lawmaker Brad Snyder, who has backed Kasten this year, said he was “devastated” by the news of Gwen’s death. “May the family have privacy and peace right now, knowing that our community holds them in our hearts, and may Gwen’s memory be a blessing to all who have known her,” Snyder said. Kind words came from across the political aisle, with all six Republican candidates in the 6th District – Glen Ellyn’s Niki Conforti, Oak Lawn’s Rob Cruz, Burr Ridge’s Gary Grasso, Orland Park Scott Kaspar, Catherine A. O ‘ Shea of Oak Lawn and Keith Pekau of Orland Park – expressing their condolences in public.
