‘It makes no sense.’ Mother mourns her teen son, shot to death on a metro-east street
Lisa Spraggins describes her son as a quiet teen who everybody loved. So she’s at a loss about why 19-year-old Denzel Woolfolk was found shot to death on North 45th Street in East St. Louis on March 14.
“It makes no sense,” the East St. Louis woman said in a BND interview. “ I am just numb. I am still in denial.”
Police aren’t saying much about the case. In a statement released Thursday, Illinois State Police called it an ``open and ongoing investigation.”
In the meantime, Spraggins and the rest of Woolfolk’s family and friends are left to wonder who shot him and why?
“The things the family did with Denzel present are no more because someone used a gun to take his life from him… from us , everybody who loved him. His life mattered to all of us,” she said.
Spraggins described Woolfolk, her youngest child, as quiet but outgoing. He never bothered anyone. “He loved to play his video games… He loved his tennis shoes and he loved to drive a car,” she said. “That was my baby.”
Woolfolk lived at home with his mother.
“He was at my cousin’s house when this happened, “she said. “But, he was pretty much always at home. I couldn’t get him to go outside to do nothing. He was a loner. Basically, he was to himself.”
He never asked for anything. “He loved eating him some Popeye’s chicken. He loved the popcorn shrimp and spicy chicken wings. And, he loved McDonald’s chicken nuggets,” Spraggins said with a chuckle.
She called Woolfolk “my blessed child. When I got pregnant with him, I thought I could not get pregnant any more,” she said. “I am going to miss hm yelling at his nieces and news who he loved so much.
“Recovery from this, if there is such a thing, will be extremely hard. I never imagined this. How did this happen?”
Woolfolk graduated from East St. Louis Senior High School in 2022. And, though the road map that would lead to his chosen career or trade was still being created, Spraggins knows Woolfolk would have been successful.
“He would have made good decisions,” she said
She said someone did “something to my baby at the prom,” and he has never been the same since. She did not want to disclose her thoughts about what may have happened, but she said he was different after that event.
“ That was the reason for me being right there by his side. … He stopped eating. He was really, really quiet. We stopped going to the mall because he was working. But, he couldn’t really hold a job.”
Spraggins said he was getting ready to get Woolfolk evaluated at a hospital at the time of his death.
Spraggins said words cannot describe the tremendous pain a mother feels when she loses a child, especially when the death was not from natural causes.
Nobody has a right to take another life with gun violence, she said.
“Everyday, everywhere we are seeing and hearing about shootings that claim people’s lives. This madness has to stop. This is not normal behavior,” she said.
Spraggins said she does not want another mother and father, or family, to go through this kind of agony. Woolfolks’ sisters and brother are taking the tragedy hard. They all were close.
“My baby girl wanted to wear his clothes, so she’s been wearing his clothes,” Spraggins said “She is not doing too good. The two older ones are holding on pretty good, but they’re going to need some help.”
Woolfolk was really just starting his life, and now he will never have the chance to marry, start a career and raise a family, his mother noted.
Woolfolk’s mother said he was in a relationship, and he and his girlfriend seemed to be enjoying each other’s company.
Now the family will never get the chance to celebrate these milestones with him, cheer him on, to encourage him or enjoy his presence at family gatherings, Spraggins said. “He meant the world to our family.”
Spraggins encourages anyone with any information about her son’s death to call authorities. The regional Crime Stoppers phone number is 314-725-8477. Tipsters can remain anonymous.
