Almost five years after 19-year-old Charles Baird was shot outside a Circle K gas station in New Lenox — the village’s first homicide in two decades — the trial for a Harvey man facing murder charges began Tuesday.
Baird’s mother, Jennifer, has maintained a memorial at the Circle K gas station on Nelson Road since her son’s death. Aside from the flowers, it remains mostly intact.
“It’s my son, Charlie,” Baird, a New Lenox resident for 25 years, said with sorrow after prosecutors showed her a picture of her middle child Tuesday.
The defendant was 16 when prosecutors say he shot Baird outside the Circle K. The teen, now 21, faces two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the shooting May 11, 2020.
The Daily Southtown isn’t naming the defendant because he was a juvenile when charged.
Baird, a Lincoln-Way West High School graduate, was living with his parents and working as a cook at Red Robin in Orland Park at the time of his death.
His father, David Baird, previously told the Southtown Charles shared a Mother’s Day dinner with the family just hours before the shooting, and went out afterward.
“On May 10, 2020, Mother’s Day, Charlie Baird said goodbye to his mom for the last time, because later that night, Charlie Baird was shot and killed by this defendant as he was running for his life,” Assistant State’s Attorney Lauren Senko told Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak, who will decide the case in a bench trial.
Prosecutors said DNA evidence links the defendant to the crime.
Jason Strzelecki, a Will County public defender representing the Harvey man, said he plans to prove his innocence via testimony from the defendant’s brother, who Strzelecki claims was with him the entire night of the shooting.
Charles Baird, 19, of New Lenox. (David Baird)
“This is one of those cases where it’s actually going to be a lot easier for me to talk to you about what won’t be presented during trial,” Strzelecki said. “Your honor, there will be no credible testimony from any eyewitness to say that (the defendant) committed this murder. There will be no forensic evidence to show that (the defendant) pulled the trigger in this case. There is no murder weapon. There is no confession.”
Patricia Hudgens, the store manager at Circle K, said Baird, a regular customer, parked at a gas pump just before midnight and entered the store. Realizing he had forgotten his wallet, Baird returned to his car to get it and came back inside.
Hudgens then noticed a black SUV, which had been stolen from Lockport two days before, driving around the parking lot, parking in different spots and eventually stopping at a gas pump across from Baird’s car. She saw someone get out of the SUV and try the door handle on Baird’s car, she said.
“I asked him if he knew these people,” Hudgens said. “He said, ‘No.’”
Baird left the store and walked back to his car, only to be approached by one of the people from the SUV. As Baird tried to run back into the store, the man pulled out a gun and shot him in the back, Hudgens said.
After she heard the gunshot, Hudgens said she locked herself in a back office and called 911.
Prosecutors showed several minutes of video footage showing Baird staggering into the Circle K, bleeding heavily, collapsing to the floor, briefly regaining his footing and then collapsing again.
New Lenox police Deputy Chief Tim Perry, a sergeant at the time and responded to the shooting, said he saw blood outside the gas station’s entrance and Baird walking toward the door.
Perry said Baird was pale, had labored breathing, was bleeding profusely from his back and had a protrusion in his lower abdomen from the bullet.
Baird was taken to Silver Cross Hospital in critical condition and died three days later at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Prosecutors said the defendant’s DNA was found on a cigarette butt in the back of the black SUV.
The defendant was arrested May 11, charged as an adult for the shooting and has remained in custody at the Will County Adult Detention Facility.
During booking, prosecutors said the defendant told officers he was in possession of a firearm before his arrest and asked whether others in the vehicle would be charged.
“None of these witnesses will be able to tell us that much, the best they will be able to do is offer speculation, a whole string of speculation,” Strzelecki said. “In short, there will be a lot of witnesses, but not a lot of substance.”
The trial will resume Wednesday at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet.
smoilanen@chicagotribune.com
