By John Carpenter; Homicide Watch Chicago
Denise Warfield wasn’t perfect. She struggled with drugs. She struggled with alcohol. She moved from one abandoned West Englewood house to the next.
But she baked wonderful cookies, and she was nice to everyone.
That’s why neighbors have been pausing at the makeshift memorial that marks the spot, in the 7300 block of S. Ashland, where her body was found Saturday.
“She was a lovely lady,” said Rev. Ezra Jones, pastor of the Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church at 7230 S. Ashland. “She was a little bit lost. But she was a nice person to everyone.”
Warfield was found dead in an abandoned church. An autopsy Sunday determined that she died from multiple stab wounds. Investigators have ruled her death a homicide, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office. Area South detectives are investigating.
“I don’t know who would have done something like that to her,” Jones said. “But I can tell you this, whoever did that, it wasn’t something she started. She had a kindness and generosity about her all the time.”
Bridget Banks, a former neighbor who still spends time on the 7100 block of S. Winchester, where Warfield lived, agreed.
“She used to bake cookies. She was so nice to everyone,” Banks said. “I’ll tell you the truth, I didn’t even know her name. She was just the ‘Cookie Lady.’”
Banks said Warfield lived in an abandoned house, with her boyfriend. She walked a reporter down to the house to knock on the door, only to be told by a person in a passing car that Warfield had moved to another abandoned house several doors down. There was no answer at that door when she knocked.
Rev. Daryl Jones, also a minister at Mount Olive, said he first met Warfield about ten years ago at New Attitudes, then a well-known neighborhood restaurant. That was before her struggles with substance abuse.
“She was a very beautiful woman, both physically and intellectually,” he said.
Jones recalled that Warfield was married at the time, to a man who had achieved some financial success. He said that man “wound up being incarcerated, and that may have been the trigger” to Warfield’s problems with drugs and alcohol.
“The next thing I knew, I saw her and it was like she changed overnight.” Jones said. “That’s when she started struggling with substance abuse.”
Banks said everyone knew about Warfield’s struggles. But she never caused trouble or bothered people.
“She had her troubles,” Banks said. “She’d be drunk and what not. But she was not a bad person at all.”
Warfield was a regular at Mount Olive, and Daryl Jones said church members are devastated.
“Everybody knew her. I mean, everybody knew her. It hurt us when we heard they found her, because she was truly the kind of person you would have wanted to know,” he said.
Contributing: Sun-Times Media Wire
Part of a makeshift memorial for Denise Warfield, 47, found dead Saturday in Englewood.
