WEST ENGLEWOOD — Shambreyh Barfield carried herself as though she were on top of the world.
"She had so much confidence," said her cousin Iesha Collins, 22. "People would think, 'Who is this plus-sized woman who has so much confidence?' She would say that she was someone to envy. That's why we called her 'Envy.'"
Barfield, 21, was shot dead Thursday afternoon while in the 3800 block of West Monroe Street. Though she grew up nearby, it was a block much of her family avoided.
"That's a block we don't mess with," said sister Danielle Means, 23, outside of the West Englewood home where the sisters lived prior to Barfield's death. "We know what goes on over there, where enemies have enemies. But she didn't think like that. She was everyone's friend."
Though police were not able to say whether or not she was the intended target, Barfield's family said the bullets were meant for someone she was with at the time.
"Everybody knew Sham. Everybody loved her. Nobody wanted to shoot her. Sham never got in it with nobody," Means said.
Barfield was shot in her head and pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital. A woman with her was shot in her arm and taken to the same hospital.
Barfield grew up about a mile away from the shooting scene, where her father's side of the family remains.
"That's our neighborhood," Means said.
When she was 11, Means and her sister moved away to get away from the violence, first to Englewood, then to north suburban Waukegan.
But the family felt a pull toward Chicago in recent years and moved into a home in West Englewood.
Barfield, who had two children, found herself taking the CTA back to her old West Side neighborhood both to maintain ties with her father's side of the family and to make new friends.
"That's all we wanted. We came back to be closer to family," Means said. "We didn't want to lose her."
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