RIP Gabby Ayres — A daylight shooting that seemed clear-cut… until her boyfriend woke up and spoke his first words. On February 4, 2026, at around 1:25 p.m. at 79th & May on Chicago’s South Side, Gabryel Gnia Ayres — “Gabby,” 26 — was sitting in the front passenger seat of a white car. Her boyfriend was driving. A baby girl just over 1 year old was in the back seat.

The daylight ambush that claimed the life of **Gabryel Gnia Ayres**, known to loved ones as Gabby, on February 4, 2026, appeared at first glance to be a straightforward case of targeted gun violence in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood. Viral videos captured the horror: a white sedan riddled with bullets from a red SUV, the victims’ car crashing into a van amid the chaos, and more than 50 shell casings scattered across the busy intersection of 79th Street and South May Street. The 26-year-old mother was struck multiple times and died at the hospital. Her 27-year-old boyfriend, driving the vehicle, survived gunshot wounds to his arm and buttocks. Their 14-month-old daughter, strapped in the back seat, emerged miraculously unscathed—a detail that amplified the tragedy’s senselessness and sparked widespread outrage.