Niece says Charles Smith Jr., gunned down in Woodlawn, was a 'great person' who 'didn't do nothing'

Chicago Police investigate near a church in the 6500 block of South Maryland, where Charles Smith Jr. was shot to death early Wednesday. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Nicole Gayfield said her uncle Charles Irving Smith Jr. spent all day Tuesday cooking soul food, then later dropping off plates of the food at her house.

“He cooked for his whole building. He fed everybody,” Gayfield, 36, said early Wednesday near yellow crime scene tape. Her uncle’s body could be seen half a block away, slumped against a fence outside the Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

Officers responding to reports of a man down about 3:30 a.m. found the 45-year-old Smith lying on the sidewalk in the 6400 block of South Maryland with gunshot wounds to the head and right side, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was dead at the scene.

Gayfield identified Smith as her mother’s only brother. He was a barber who liked to cook, and was gunned down just steps from his apartment building. She said he was 47.

Charles Irving Smith Jr. | photo provided

“When is it gonna stop? When is it gonna stop?” she wailed. “All these innocent babies—my uncle didn’t do nothing.”

Flanked by her wife and sister, Gayfield stood at the crime scene for hours Wednesday morning, waiting for the body removal service.

She had been sleeping in her home about a block away when one of Smith’s neighbors called to wake her up. The neighbor told her Smith had left the building about 2 a.m. to go to a laundromat nearby, but never came back.

“He was a great person, very caring, giving,” she said. “He had good wisdom and always smiled, even through the bad things in life.”

Gayfield, who has a 1-year-old son, said Smith taught her “everything,” adding that she even went to barber school because of him.

She said she had last spoken with him about 9 p.m. Tuesday, when Smith texted her about wanting to show her his new haircut. Gayfield told him she was going to sleep and that she’d see him tomorrow.

“This is just really messed up,” Gayfield said. “They really took a good man.”