Shooting victim remembered for her energy, big heart

Stacie Williams was known for her large curls, her unstoppable energy and her big heart.

"I used to tell her, 'I want the drug you are taking,' " said Dr. Elsie Santana, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Nassau University Medical Center who had worked with Williams in the labor and delivery suite where Williams had been a patient care assistant.

Relatives, colleagues and former patients described the 45-year-old single mother of three, who police said was gunned down early Wednesday morning by Kim Wolfe, a Nassau correction officer, as more than just professional: She was the one on the floor who could lift the spirits of patients and colleagues alike.

Dr. Chaur-Dong Hsu, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at NUMC, said Williams was one of the first faces he saw every day when he arrived early to work and she was finishing her 11 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift.

"Always she would say, 'Dr. Hsu, how are you?' She would always be working so hard. She was so energetic and so sweet," he said.

Indeed, some of that verve came through on her Facebook page, where the Hempstead resident described herself - in all caps - as: "BLESSED, BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL IS WHAT I AM."

Hsu and others said they were dumbfounded to hear she had been killed, and labor and maternity nurses and patient care assistants were so upset by the news they were unable to meet with reporters. The hospital, where Williams had worked for 23 years, was providing counseling services and will be holding a memorial service, spokeswoman Shelley Lotenberg said.

Dr. Lennox Bryson, an obstetrician-gynecologist on duty the night of the slaying, had spoken to Williams only an hour before she was shot.

"She said to me, 'When you get a chance, I want to chat with you,' " Bryson said. Had she something special to talk to him about, he was asked. No, he said, she just always took time to chat with him.

"She was the most bubbly person in the corporation," he said. "She knew everyone in every department."

A former patient also remembered her as extremely competent. Two years ago, Mary Di Nicci of Lindenhurst spent about three weeks on the third floor where Williams worked.

"She was very efficient; she knew her stuff," Di Nicci said. "She was always up, always professional. She seemed like she loved her job."

One of Williams' three sisters, Nicole Robinson Rogers, called Williams a "workaholic" whose family "meant everything to her."

"If she had a quarter, she'd give you 20 cents of that quarter. You needed a shirt? She'd give it to you," Rogers said.

Williams also maintained friendly relations with her ex-husband. Sam King, 48, of Hempstead, who divorced Williams in 1997, said he had been invited to Williams' home this Sunday for a Father's Day barbecue.

"She's my wife, and I still love her," King said.

Barry King, 26, the youngest of her three children, who also works at NUMC as a patient care assistant in the emergency department, described her as hard-working and much beloved. In a testament, he has a tattoo of his mother's name on his forearm.

King said he was home, where he and his other brothers lived with their mother, when he was jolted awake by a phone call from the hospital telling him she was unconscious.

"She had the gift of gab, laugh; everybody liked her," he said. "So I will never understand why she would die of a violent crime like that."