Inset: Yahkeim Lollar (YouTube/HEBC). Background: Jahara Malik (Law&Crime).
A Florida teen will spend nearly two decades behind bars after she stabbed her boyfriend to death just days before Christmas while she was "horseplaying" with a knife in a parking garage.
Jahara Malik, 18, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for the stabbing death of 17-year-old Yahkeim Lollar in Miami. In March, she pleaded guilty to manslaughter with a deadly weapon.
The more than five-hour-long sentencing hearing was filled with emotional testimony, with Lollar's loved ones demanding a stiff prison sentence and Malik's family and friends begging for the judge to send her to boot camp.
Zeldrina Beecham, the victim's aunt, said she was doing everything in her power not to physically attack the defendant in the courtroom.
"It will always be a fact that you are a murderer. You are a demon seed that your parents brought into this world to bring suffering on everybody else. Shame on them," she said. "If you was to go to hell, I wouldn't spit on you to put you out. I hope the thoughts of him screaming for help permeates in that smooth surface brain of yours."
Darveed Lollar Sr., Yahkeim's father, said his son's nickname was Kemo.
"Kemo wasn't hanging around the wrong crowd," he told the judge. "It took for somebody he trusted and loved to do him like that. He wasn't no chump. He was a well-respected young man. He was taught not to abuse, not to be abusive to women. And I think that was his ultimate, that was the reason for his demise."
Prosecutor Kristen Rodriguez rejected the idea that the stabbing was the result of horseplay. She noted Malik stabbed Lollar with such force that it penetrated his hoodie, shirt and muscle before clipping his rib and going "directly into his heart."
"An accident is something without foresight, without the reasonable ability to prevent it. And this case screams foreseeability. Not only from the fact that she is 17 and she's pulling the knife out when they're … playing around."
Malik's defense attorney dubbed the stabbing as horseplay that went too far. The fact that she was playing with a knife showed her immaturity, he said. The best way for rehabilitation, her attorney argued, is for her to undergo therapy and be broken down and built back up at boot camp.
While addressing the court, Malik said she has accepted responsibility for her actions and pointed out that she immediately began helping Lollar after she stabbed him.
"I wanted him to live," Malik insisted. "I understand that trying to help does not undo the harm. I stayed because at the end of the day, I was at fault. I would rather live, knowing I tried to help him, than live knowing I left him there when I could have possibly saved his life. I was reckless. That knife should never have been out, and because of that, a life was lost. I was wrong for what I did and every day I sit and think about the damage I caused. The family wants me in prison, but I'm in my own prison for the rest of my life."
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Christine Hernandez noted the gulf between the punishment prosecutors wanted and what the defense presented. It was apparent from the judge's remarks that she was siding with the state. Malik's youth was no excuse for her actions, Hernandez said.
"Because the sentence in this case must reflect the seriousness of what occurred and because the sentence must reflect accountability, as well as the importance of protecting the public, the court cannot ignore the fact that a life was lost and the manner in which that life was taken," the judge stated.
In the end, the 17-year sentence was just three years shy of the state's request for 20 years behind bars.
According to an arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, Miami police responded around 11 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2024, to a report of a stabbing in the parking garage at Lollar's apartment complex in the 6100 block of Northwest Sixth Court. Paramedics rushed him to a hospital, where he died.
Per the affidavit, Malik, then 17, was set to go shopping with a friend on the day in question. Before she left, she was looking for the pepper spray she typically used for protection, but could not find it, so she grabbed a knife instead, the affidavit said. After shopping, she went to meet with Lollar in the parking garage. The two were "horseplaying," and she somehow ended up stabbing him in the chest.
Lollar's mother, Nathalie Jean, told local NBC affiliate WTVJ she never believed the horseplaying argument.
"Her whole defense is horseplaying. Who horseplays with a knife? You [learn] as a kid that you don't play with sharp objects, right?" she told WTVJ after a bond hearing last year.
As Law&Crime previously reported, surveillance video showed Malik dropping the knife in the parking garage. A portion of Malik's statement to police was redacted from the affidavit. A medical examiner deemed the death a homicide a few weeks after the stabbing.
Malik had not been arrested before this incident, her lawyer said. The attorney told CBS affiliate WFOR that the stabbing was not intentional.
The victim's father, Darveed Lollar, said the killing didn't have to happen.
"By somebody just playing, they took my boy's life," he told ABC affiliate WPLG. "That's what they said. They [were] playing."
The family has been frustrated that it took so long to put Malik behind bars, despite knowing she was the one responsible for the homicide.
"They couldn't find something to charge her with the night of, when there was no question as to what happened or who [did] this, so I mean it's, right now, it's a little bittersweet," Darveed Lollar told WTVJ.
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