A 17-year-old Miami teen, Jahara Malik, has been taken into custody in connection to the fatal stabbing of her ex-boyfriend, 17-year-old Yahkeim Lollar, whose life was tragically cut short outside his apartment in December. Arrested Tuesday and currently held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center without bond, Malik faces a manslaughter charge, with the circumstances leading to Lollar's death still shrouded in questions, as Local 10 News reports.
Responders found Lollar, a former high school football player and aspiring stockbroker, on the third floor of his apartment's parking garage with a chest wound on December 20—surveillance footage later reviewed by the Miami police showed Malik and another woman meeting Lollar then subsequently, showed Lollar bleeding from his chest; Malik was seen dropping what appeared to be a knife near the scene, as Local 10 News detailed. Malik's initial statement to the detectives was that they were "horseplaying" before the stabbing occurred, an incident that ultimately led the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office to deem the death a homicide on January 16.
Lollar's aunt, Zeldrina Beecham, a deputy with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, expressed her heartbreak, saying, in an interview with Local 10 News, "We taught him to stay out of the streets and keep his head on right and he did exactly that and still this happened."
Lollar's passionate family, who described him as devoted and not one to "be around the wrong crowd," pushed for charges to be filed—a pursuit that culminated in Malik's arrest following a protest outside the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, according to NBC Miami.
After a court hearing yesterday, there are discussions to possibly transfer Malik's case to adult court, an update that has left Lollar's family with mixed emotions, as stated by Lollar’s brother, Darveed, "They couldn’t find something to charge her with the night of when there was no question as to what happened or who done this, so I mean it's, right now, it’s a little bittersweet," he told NBC Miami. The investigation is continuing as Malik remains in custody.
