Alexandria “Alexa” Baute, an outgoing Logan Square resident and former Columbia student known for being “unapologetically herself,” was shot dead while waiting in line outside a 7-Eleven.

Baute, 27, known as Alexa to her family and friends, was shot in the chest by a stray bullet shortly after 8 p.m. on April 7 while waiting outside a 7-Eleven in the 2900 block of W. Fullerton Avenue in Logan Square with her friend Ricky Gould, police said. She was later transported to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center where she was pronounced dead, according to the Chicago Police Department’s news affairs office.

“We were going to grab some cigarettes and head back into her apartment,” Gould said in an interview with the Chronicle. “The whole way we’re just having such a good time, laughing, walking down the sidewalk, reliving old memories.”

For those who knew Baute personally, she was someone who valued friendship over anything else and was “unapologetically herself” at all times, said her mother, Patricia Baute.

“You’ll get the real version of her in any capacity. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know,” Patricia Baute said. “No matter what she was going through, she would always make sure that she was there for everybody else. She’s the one who would always have everybody’s back.”

Alexa Baute grew up in the west suburbs of Roselle, attending Trinity Lutheran elementary school and graduating from Lake Park High School. She took photography classes at Columbia in 2011.

Unsure of what career path she wanted to take, Alexa Baute dabbled in her passions for photography, writing and music, her mother said.

She loved hardcore and punk rock music, and even played bass in a band named “Piece of Mind” that toured the country in 2016, Patricia Baute said.

“She was really into the local Chicago music scene,” said Jim Briscoe, Baute’s friend from high school. “[She was] definitely big on supporting local music and her friends that were in different bands of all types of genres.”

Briscoe was in Colorado when he heard the news about Baute, and said he immediately got in his car and drove approximately 1,100 miles back to Illinois to be with her family and friends.

“I know she would have done that for me if I ended up passing,” Briscoe said.

Another friend, Tate Schauer, thought of Alexa Baute as stubborn, but also as someone they could trust.

“Alexa was the one person that I didn’t have to keep a secret from. She knew every single thing about me,” said Schauer, who had known Baute since high school. “There was never any judgment and that always followed suit. She wanted that same respect, and she demanded it.”

Alexa Baute’s father, Jeffrey Baute, said his daughter particularly enjoyed working at Jack & Ginger’s in Logan Square, and that she dreamed of opening her own restaurant.

“We talked about one day her having her own bar [or] restaurant, so that was really her goal,” Jeffrey Baute said. “She was growing into herself and finding what she wanted to do.”

According to local anti-gun violence activist and crisis responder Andrew Holmes, an investigation to find the shooter has been opened by the Chicago Police Departments’ Area North detectives, and officials are following up with leads as well as examining footage from the scene.

Holmes is also helping the family organize a $9,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.

“I’m not angry yet. I know that will happen, but at this point, the detectives are doing their job,” Jeffrey Baute said. “I’m not going down that rabbit hole.”

In addition to her parents, Patricia and Jeffrey Baute; and friends, Gould, Briscoe, and Schauer; Baute is survived by the many people who have come across her in Logan Square.