MIAMI – Family members of 17-year-old Yahkeim Lollar rallied together in a Miami courthouse Tuesday as prosecutors sought to keep his ex-girlfriend, facing an adult manslaughter charge in his stabbing death, behind bars.
Jahara Malik, also 17, is accused of stabbing Lollar to death on the third floor of a parking garage at his apartment complex in the 6100 block of Northwest Sixth Court in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood on Dec. 20.
Police said she claimed she and Lollar were “horseplaying” before the stabbing occurred.
“He was the ultimate competitor at everything he did,” Darveed Lollar, the victim’s father, said. “Loved everybody. Just the perfect kid in my eyes.”
She was initially released on a $50,000 bond with GPS monitoring after appearing in adult bond court on Friday. But prosecutors are asking a judge to order her held before trial.
Family members, friends, as well as educators were there in support of Lollar. Defense attorneys are implying the killing was accidental. Family members, however, believe that there was malice involved.
“She’s going to jail. She’s going to pay for what she did to my son because he didn’t want to be with her,” Lollar’s mother, Nathalie Jean, said. “Who gives her the right — she thinks she loved him more than me. I’m his mother. That’s his father. She made that decision to take my son’s life. Nobody made that decision. She did and she’s got to be held accountable.”
Jean called an ankle monitor “a slap in the face,” but Handfield said, “I want if off due to the fact that as a student in school there’s a negative connotation.”
Attorney Larry Handfield called what happened a “totally unfortunate situation” Tuesday, but said he doesn’t believe “it’s in the interest of justice for her to be taken back into custody and to be held in custody in the adult facility until this matter’s resolved.”
The pre-trial detention hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday.