Five-year-old Chesley Wetherington, as well as her mom Robin and a host of other relatives, friends and work associates, will miss her daddy, Charles A. Wetherington Jr., who died Sunday night of an apparent heart attack. He was 46 years old.

“Charlie,” as the Valdosta attorney was known, had gone to his farm in Brooks County Sunday afternoon to do some work when he began experiencing some heart pains.

He drove himself to Smith Northview Hospital, arriving at 6 p.m., where he went into cardiac arrest, and medical personnel weren’t able to revive him, according to his niece, Taran Nelson of Valdosta.

“He was a very giving person,” Nelson said in a telephone interview Monday afternoon. “He was willing to do anything he could for anybody” (a sentiment echoed by his paralegal Robin Maples).

“He liked to have fun and laugh,” Nelson said.

Wetherington’s niece said the family is “totally shocked” over the early death of their loved one.

“You kind of feel like you are in a bad dream,” she said, but added, “He was a Christian man, so we can have hope he is in heaven and not suffering.”

Wetherington had been a member of Perimeter Road Baptist Church about 20 years and was involved in the community as well, including the foundation board of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College, America Heart Association and the United Way.

“Anything to help, he was always there,” said Dr. Tim Brady of Valdosta Medical Clinic, who had known Wetherington since Brady was 6.

Wetherington, a fifth-generation Valdostan, had his own law firm at 106 E. North St., practicing in the areas of civil litigation, criminal defense, divorce and family law, personal injury and wrongful death, probate, real estate, small business representation and traffic law.

He had practiced law since 1989 when he graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law. After spending 14 years at the Valdosta law firm of Langdale and Vallotton, where he attained the rank of managing partner, Wetherington formed his own law firm in 2003.

 Wetherington was currently representing a Lowndes County man accused of murder.

According to the Facebook page of his business,  among his noteworthy cases were the Brooks County murder case known as the “tattoo man murder;” a drug case in which his client was arrested on Interstate 75 transporting 52 kilos of cocaine, after which he escaped from jail when his associates used explosives to blow a hole in the wall (he was later captured by U.S. marshals in the nation of Columbia); a 1998 Valdosta murder case involving an alleged “gang hit” whereby all charges were dismissed following a week-long trial; a 2003 week-long double murder trial in Brooks County which ended in a hung jury and was retried in its entirety in 2004; and a 2005 robbery case involving an All-State football player who received a probated sentence.

“He always had something in his heart for the downtrodden, the people who had been dealt a bad hand in life,” said Brady, one of his three best friends along with Kevin Weldon, a medical supply salesman based out of Alma, and Shawn Parrish, who works at Hyundai of Valdosta. “He always gave people the benefit of a doubt, no matter who they were.”

Weldon, who was in the Valdosta High Touchdown Club with Wetherington, told about the former standout VHS quarterback Wetherington took under his roof long after his playing days were over, buying clothes for him and helping him go to college in Boston.

“He could see past any color or demographics,” Weldon said.

The 25-year-old black male who grew up on “the wrong side of town” will be a pallbearer at Wetherington’s funeral at 11 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 19, at Perimeter Road Baptist Church.

A fund for the education of Wetherington’s daughter, Chesley, has been set up at First State Bank, Attention: Will Kemp, P.O. Box 4810, Valdosta, Ga. 31604.