ROGERS PARK — When MaryAnne O'Reilly saw her boyfriend, Dennis Woods, was calling her around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday night she initially ignored it — not realizing he'd been critically shot three times less than five minutes earlier.
They'd gotten into an argument earlier in the day, and hadn't spoken since.
So Woods, 25, ended up leaving her a voicemail — one she said she'll never forget.
He said, "'I love you, I love my kids,'" O'Reilly recalled Friday, as she tearfully recounted the exasperation in the voice of Woods, who then repeated the message.
According to police, the shooting took place at 8:12 p.m. in the 1900 block of Birchwood Ave. Wednesday night, just hours after Evanston and 24th District police lined up for a joint roll call around the block. Police said the victim — who officials did not identify — had been shot multiple times in the chest and said he was a documented gang member.
Wood's had two surgeries so far, one on his collapsed lung, which swelled with blood after being shot, and one on his injured kidney — half of which was removed, O'Reilly said. He's scheduled for another surgery Friday, this time on his stomach wound which has remained exposed under a sheet as Woods lies heavily sedated and unconscious in his hospital bed.
"Everybody was very skeptical or not as to if he was gonna make it," she said. "If you look at him right now, his body is cold. You can tell just by touching his body it's heavy, like he looks dead."
But O'Reilly said there's more to the story than what police say.
Woods was shot once in his kidney, once in the back of his leg and once in his stomach, she said, after walking home from a nearby Jewel grocery store. He and a friend had gone to pick up a celebratory bottle of Grey Goose for his friend's birthday.
But as the two were walking home along Birchwood Ave., a car was circling the block, looking for them, she said. The second time the car rolled around, she said a witness told her Woods' friend walked up to the window and briefly spoke with someone in the car who said it appeared as if Woods and his friend were being distracted for a set up.
After the friend walked away from the car, two men in the car started shooting at Woods and his friend. Someone jumped out of the car and pursued Woods, shooting at him before the gunman ran away himself. The person driving the car had already peeled away, she said.
Chicago Police and Evanston Police sitting at the border between the two cities on Howard Street. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
After the scuffle, Woods was left to lay alone on the soft green patch of grass between the sidewalk and street on Birchwood, nearly bleeding to death. The friend he was walking with had also fled.
That's when he picked up the phone and called O'Reilly, the mother of his two children.
O'Reilly said she lives on nearby Howard Street and that Woods had been living with her off-and-on when he wasn't living with his aunt on the city's West Side.
Both frustrated with what they felt like were increasingly overt drug deals and shootings across Chicago, she said the pair had been in recent talks over escaping the city for a more quiet life in Georgia.
"We were both planning on leaving the city and just talking about how bad it was and we wanted to leave for the kids," she said.
She said though Woods was more involved with street life in his younger teen years, the 25-year-old had "changed his life" after their 3-year-old son DJ and 6-month-old son Cayden were born.
She didn't believe Woods was the intended target Wednesday, saying he's generally been out of trouble the past few years and had distanced himself from gang life. His friends consisted of people from many different groups, regardless of any gang they may or may not be with, she said.
It was the friend he was walking with Wednesday night who she said may have been the target — Woods had complained of people trying to "gangbang with them" every time he went out in public with the friend before.
Reports show Woods was arrested in May for domestic battery at a Howard St. residence, but O'Reilly said though they've had their problems in the past, she's been by his side since learning of what happened.
The night he was shot, she said police, hospital workers and Woods' family all had to physically restrain her as she raced and pleaded to see him.
She's thankful she didn't have to explain to their children that their father had died, something she's feared multiple times since Woods' critical injuries.
Their dream of moving to Georgia is still alive and hopeful, like Woods, she said. Doctors say he needs to get on the mend first, but that moving will be possible.
"We were just trying to leave and trying to get away from all the violence, trying to get away from how bad the city's starting to get," she said. "I've lost a couple friends due to gunfire, and he's lost a lot of friends due to the same thing, and we just didn't want our kids to be around it."
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