Corey Strother Jr. spent the last eight months of his life hospitalized and unable to speak to his family during his loved ones’ daily visits to his bedside.
Strother was 15 when he was shot about 9:30 p.m. Dec. 22 in the 5900 block of South Princeton Avenue as he tried to help get his niece into the family home.
His sister yelled, “Don’t do this,” as the gunman fired one shot at the teen, according to his family. No one else was hurt in the shooting.
He then spent months at Stroger Hospital, then a rehabilitation center and finally Lurie Children’s Hospital. He died Aug. 26 from a gunshot wound to the neck and his death was ruled a homicide by the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was 16 years old.
His mother, Tiffany Strother, said her son continued to fight while he was hospitalized and seemed to be making progress, although the shooting left him with injuries to his spine and brain.
“He was trying to communicate with his eyes,” she said. “I knew that my son was still in there. He wasn’t able to tell us if he was in any pain or hurting. We had to go off his vitals.”
Her son was a junior at Dunbar Career Vocational High School when he was wounded and continued to do schoolwork while he was hospitalized. People from the school would come in and read to him.
Her son always liked going to school, hoped to go to college and loved rap music, Tiffany Strother said.
His father, Corey Strother, had been teaching the teen how to drive before the shooting. Tiffany Strother recalled how her son surprised her at a grocery store by pulling up her car close to her.
“They stole that from me,” she said. “They stole him growing up, him driving, getting his license.”
Though the teen wasn’t the oldest in the family, Tiffany Strother said she considered him the responsible child, the one she would leave in charge when she worked nights. She said her husband pushed for their son to stay on the right track, to stay away from certain crowds and only worry about himself.
Police and the family said the teen was not a gang member.
In January, Swonn Herron, 23, was charged with attempted murder in the shooting. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to court records.
Herron’s next court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9.
