Taylor Diorio, 17, went back to her old South Side community over the weekend to attend her best friend's birthday party, according to the teen's family. But as the southwest suburban girl was getting a ride home with four other people early Saturday, someone opened fire on their car, fatally striking Diorio in the head, Chicago police said.

"Every time I saw her, she had this glow to her," Diorio's aunt Mary Diorio said Monday in a telephone interview, recalling how the teen closely resembled her grandmother. "I would see her and I'd get to see my mom at the same time."

Diorio was one of six people slain that day in Chicago, tying Feb. 19 for the most homicides on a single day this year in the city, according to police statistics. Her slaying was among eight spanning Friday evening through early Monday.

As of Monday, there have been 38 homicides recorded in August, three more than all of August 2011, the statistics show. During the first 19 days of August last year, there were 22 homicides.

The rise in this month's homicides comes on the heels of a July that saw its fewest killings in years.

So far this August, most of the killings have happened in South Side and West Side neighborhoods in bouts of gun violence. The Englewood and Harrison police districts had five homicides apiece, while Grand Crossing and Austin each had four, police statistics show.

Killings throughout the year in Englewood and Harrison, however, have been down sharply after Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced in January the saturation of "conflict zones" in those districts, pouring extra officers into the neighborhoods.

Overall, 346 people have been slain in Chicago in 2012, compared with 265 during the same period last year, an increase of about 31 percent. Shootings are also up by about 8 percent.

McCarthy has tried a slew of initiatives to combat the violence, much of which he's said is caused by street gangs that have splintered off into loosely organized factions. McCarthy has championed the use of citywide "gang audits" -- specialized police units sharing gang intelligence with beat officers -- to help reduce the number of homicides and shootings.

He's also pushed for gang members arrested on misdemeanor charges to be held in the city's lockups on bail instead of allowing them to be "I-Bonded" -- released from police custody on their own recognizance without having to pay to be freed. Additionally, McCarthy is pushing for a "hot people" strategy that is meant to identify individuals who have fallen victim to or were suspected of gun violence in the past and are most likely to get caught up in it again.

After delays, the anti-violence group CeaseFire Illinois, composed of mostly ex-felons, is partnering with Chicago police in two of the city's most violent police districts.

Diorio was killed in the McKinley Park community, considered safer than many other neighborhoods. Still, Mary Diorio said the community started getting more dangerous several years ago, prompting the girl's family to move to Chicago Ridge.

"We all moved out because the gang activity was getting worse," Diorio said. "It's getting bad everywhere. There's nothing but gangbangers."

Police have said they were investigating whether the gunman and someone in the car might have been involved in a previous dispute.

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