Nearly every morning for the last year, Eduardo Ruiz took a walk with his wife, Rosa M. Hernandez, and their dog Chica at Columbus Park in the Austin neighborhood.
On Monday, desperate for a sense of normalcy, Ruiz walked without her.
Sunday morning, Hernandez, 69, was hit by a Mazda SUV driven by a woman who was allegedly under the influence of alcohol and who left Hernandez’s body lying outside a Near West Side church. Ruiz was waiting for his wife inside the church at the time of the accident.
“It’s not fair,” Ruiz told the Sun-Times through tears on Monday. “It’s a senseless accident. She took the life of someone who didn’t deserve it.”
Tammie Chaffin, 36 of South Shore, has been charged in the crash, according to police. Chaffin faces misdemeanor charges for driving under the influence, failure to reduce speed, failure to use due care to avoid hitting a pedestrian and with operating an uninsured motor vehicle.
Chaffin couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.
According to a police report, Chaffin kept driving around a corner after the collision. Several witnesses, including one who took a photo of her license plate, identified her to police officers, official said.
“I want to ask her why she took my wife’s life. When you hit somebody, you stop. She didn’t stop,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz said he and his wife of 45 years were arriving for Mass at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, 813 W. Roosevelt Rd., about 6:40 a.m. He said he went in before her, like he usually does, and chatted with his friends in the church.
Once he realized she had taken longer than usual to join him, he began asking people what happened. He said a priest told him she had been hit outside. He ran outside to help his wife, but she was already dead.
“I couldn’t even cry, because my instinct was to do something,” said Ruiz, 73. “It was too late and nobody did. I feel like it was my fault, because I didn’t wait for her.”
A spokesperson for the church confirmed Hernandez was a parishioner.
Claudia Fuentes-Peña, Hernandez’s only child, said her mother was struggling to find motivation to attend church in person, often opting to pray at home instead of attending Mass. She said her mother started going in person regularly with Ruiz just five months ago.
Although they are from Cicero, they attended Mass at the church because it was the first one Ruiz came to when he moved to the United States. Ruiz was able to learn English there and said the parishioners hold a special place in his heart.
Ruiz said Hernandez loved plants and kept many around the house. He said she always instinctively knew when to water them and how to take care of them.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with them without her,” he said. “She was a caring person. She was a wonderful woman, she doesn’t deserve this.”
Fuentes-Peña, a resident of Garfield Ridge, said her mother loved to garden. She had a garden in her backyard that she would tend to.
Fuentes-Peña said she and her three children would often gift Hernandez flowers to plant and hang in her garden for special occasions like Mother’s Day.
“We would tease her and be like, ‘You’re Rosa, and you have rosas all over the garden,’” said Fuentes-Peña, 50. “They were all different colors. She would keep them and they would thrive.”
Hernandez worked in a box factory in Cicero before she retired in 2021, her daughter said. Fuentes-Peña said many friends from her childhood have been reaching out to tell her that Hernandez was a mother figure to them.
“My mom’s a person who has touched so many people,” she said. “She’s a loving person, who would always go that extra mile for someone.”