Correction appended.

DeKALB | An NIU student who returned to Markham on Thursday to persuade his sister and his cousin to continue their education was gunned down near his grandmother’s home – apparently caught in gang-related crossfire, his family said.

Patrick Stokes, 23, went missing about 8 p.m. Thursday after leaving his mother’s house in the 16200 block of South Marshfield Avenue to make the two-block walk to his grandmother’s house, his mother said.

Maesue Stokes said her son’s body was discovered by a neighbor about 10 hours later, lying in a back yard two doors away from his grandmother’s house in the 16200 block of South Justine Street. He had suffered a gunshot wound to the face, authorities said. Maesue Stokes learned of the death when she met the neighbor on her way to work. She said the neighbor told her that she had heard shots fired about 8 p.m.

“Patrick was the first in the family to go to college, and we were so proud of him,” his mother said. “He was in his final year studying social services, and he really wanted to help children. He was a fun-loving person, a joker who everyone loved.

“I don’t know why this happened,” she said. “He just wasn’t that sort of person. He was a college nerd – that’s what we called him.”

Stokes, a former Thornton High School student and Carver Military Academy graduate, took a Greyhound bus from DeKalb on Thursday and planned to take his sister and cousin back with him for a week to show them what college life was like, his brother Antoine Stokes said.

Stokes had just moved into a new home in DeKalb with his girlfriend, he said.

“He wanted to be a counselor at a high school when he graduated – he was always talking about helping the kids around here,” his brother said.

Markham police Friday declined to comment on the killing, with Deputy Chief Jim Knapp saying only, “The case is still under investigation.”

A 9mm casing was found at the scene, authorities said.

Detectives were seen with at least three teenage boys in custody at the police station Friday afternoon.

“There’s kids out there on the street every night, gangbanging,” Antoine Stokes said. “Patrick was probably caught in the crossfire.”

Describing Stokes as a sharp dresser who “had shoes that were years old that looked brand new because he was always cleaning them,” his mother said Stokes had recently quit his part-time job at a Target store to concentrate on his studies.

He spent last summer helping his uncle repair his Hurricane Katrina – damaged house in New Orleans and had returned home most weekends since school began. He had been helping repair the roof at his grandmother’s house in recent weeks, his mom said.

“He’d do anything he could to help me; he was the perfect grandson,” said his grandmother, Alberta Stokes. “I just hope they find who did this. He didn’t know anyone around here, and there is no reason for it. It was a senseless killing – senseless.”

The Northern Star reprinted this story with permission from the Daily Southtown newspaper.

Nov. 7: In a brief printed Monday, the Northern Star mistakenly omitted the first name of Patrick L. Stokes, an NIU student who was shot and killed Thursday (see above story). The Star apologizes and regrets this error. If you have any information that might add to this on-going story, please contact us at [email protected].