UPTOWN — When Alexis Stubbs walked through her Uptown neighborhood, her afro and tall-for-her-age height made her stand out, easy for her friends and family to spot walking home from her school down the block, according to neighbors who knew the child well.
"That's how you could recognize her walking around the neighborhood. She had her own little style," said Shielyndia McFadden, 36, whose son attended Courtenay Language Arts Academy with Alexis.
The 12-year-old girl was beaten and stabbed to death in Uptown on Sunday night — and police say a boyfriend of the girl's mother was expected to be charged in her death.
"We never thought something like this was going to happen. It's creepy. She was a neighborhood child," said Shielyndia, who has lived in Uptown all her life. "It's sick, disgusting, sad. She was only a 12-year-old child. She was a baby."
Alexis herself had been in mourning this month following the death of her "best friend" 13-year-old Tianna Hollinside, who tragically drowned at Rogers Beach in May, according to Shielyndia's sister Alicia, who nicknamed her "niecey," as in niece.
"She just went to her best friend's funeral," said Alicia, who always got a big hug from the child when they saw each other.
"I was expecting to see her, but she ain't gonna come out. I was used to her running out and hugging me," she said from in front of the home Monday.
At 9:45 p.m., the girl was at her home in the 4600 block of North Beacon Street when she was stabbed and beaten, police said. She was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital.
Stubbs was pronounced dead at 10:46 p.m., according to the Medical Examiner's Office.
Stubbs' mother and a "male acquaintance," 31, had an argument on Sunday, a Chicago Police spokesman said, and the attack on the girl "stemmed" from that fight. Stubbs was murdered "during the course of a domestic dispute," police said.
Activist Andrew Holmes told the Sun-Times that Stubbs' mother intended to donate her child's organs. Stubbs lived with her mother in the apartment where she was killed, he said, but her mother was outside the apartment building during the attack.
