Latavious Owens, a 29-year-old from Memphis who traveled selling candy, was stabbed at Boston’s South Station on Aug. 12 and later died at a hospital. The reported motive remains disputed: his family said an argument over a $25 cellphone bill preceded the killing, while the suspect’s mother said her son acted in self-defense. The Boston Globe reported both accounts.
Authorities identified the suspect as Marico Levy, another candy seller. The Globe’s August coverage described Levy as 17; its November report described him as 18. The later report said he turned himself in to Texas authorities over Halloween weekend and was expected to be returned to Boston to face charges. The accounts about the confrontation have not been reconciled in the reporting cited here.
A fundraising pitch, and its limits as an explanation
Owens and other young men from Memphis sold candy while traveling, sometimes telling strangers the money would support youth sports, according to the Globe. That kind of pitch has also appeared in other reported solicitations, but the examples do not establish a connection to Owens or show how common the practice is. Boston police had received reports in October 2025 of young men soliciting for a football team or selling candy near South Station, MassLive reported.
In a separate case, police in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, said in May 2025 that teens were going door to door claiming to raise money for a high-school football team. WSPA reported that police accused them of stealing from community members. That incident was not the South Station case, and the similarity in fundraising claims does not establish that the groups were connected.
Memphis context, not a cause
The University of Memphis’s 2025 Memphis Poverty Fact Sheet reports that 38.8% of children in the city lived in poverty in 2024. That citywide measure gives economic context for Owens’s home city; it does not describe his individual circumstances or explain the killing. The Globe separately reported that 59% of children in the ZIP code where Owens lived were in poverty, a different geographic measure.
Owens was from Memphis and sold candy while traveling, the Globe reported. His mother, Shermanda McNeal, told the Globe that funeral expenses had left her struggling with bills. Those details describe the pressures facing his family; they do not settle what happened at the station.
McNeal’s account of the dispute came through what Owens’s friends told her, according to the Globe. Levy’s mother offered a different account, saying her son was defending himself and had been coerced into selling candy with Owens and his friends. The circumstances of the stabbing and the competing claims remain matters for the investigation and court process.
