21-Year-Old Was Found Dead During a Traffic Stop and His Mom Says Autopsy Proves There’s More to the Story

Kenya Mitchell says friends and family keep urging her to move forward after the bizarre death of her eldest son, Malachi, earlier this year.

She can’t.

“Dad, brothers, my mom — they are all like, ‘You’ve got to keep moving, you’ve got other kids, don’t let it consume you,’ ” says Mitchell, a 39-year-old mother of five. “How can it not? I try to rest my mind. My mind is hard to rest.”

Only two people truly know what happened on the night of Jan. 29, when 21-year-old Malachi was found fatally shot in the passenger seat of a car that had been pulled over outside Atlanta.

One of them is now dead.

The other, the driver, admitted to police that he shot Malachi, Mitchell says — yet he is not facing charges.

On Sept. 3, the district attorney in Douglas County, Ga., officially closed the case, ruling it an act of self-defense. Mitchell, however, believes her son died during a lawful gun sale that spiraled into violence, and she’s determined to prove that a crime was committed.

“I just started to realize we’re already in December and my son has a birthday coming up on Dec. 15 and would have been 22, so that’s been hard,” she says. “And the holidays are even more hard. I’m trying to push through, but I’ve been steadfast in the journey.”

Malachi’s death drew national attention when his mother spoke out after his body was found.

In February, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Col. Tavarreus Pounds said evidence indicated that two men who knew each other met for the sale and purchase of a firearm. After the transaction was completed, a struggle allegedly broke out inside the vehicle. The buyer, who was also driving the car, produced a second gun and shot Malachi.

“The driver fled the scene. Just minutes later, a deputy stopped him for his erratic driving and discovered Mitchell’s body,” Pounds said at the time.

The shooter was later released, and in September the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office closed the case on the grounds of self-defense. The decision relied in part on a statement from a relative of Malachi’s who claimed he had bragged about being “a scammer” and needing money.

“While we are sympathetic to Ms. Mitchell’s grief over the loss of her child, we must make our decisions based on the facts, evidence, and the law as we did in this case,” district attorney Dalia Racine said in a statement. “Our office stands by our decision.”

Mitchell, meanwhile, stands firm in her own fight. After initially hiring an attorney, she is now representing herself and has filed a pro se complaint to move forward with a civil case.

She also commissioned a private autopsy, which concluded that Malachi was shot in the back of the head and that “four shots being fired by the vehicle driver towards the passenger in self-defense is not supported by the physical evidence.”

As part of her civil action, Mitchell says she has obtained the district attorney’s interview and evidence files, as well as police body camera footage and recorded interrogations — including those with the driver and his mother.

Records show the driver is currently out on bond in an unrelated criminal case.

Mitchell says she cannot stop pushing until she gets the justice she believes her son deserves, even as the pursuit takes a heavy emotional toll on her family.

“It affects my youngest daughter [now 15] a lot,” she says. “I have to pull her out of her room and she’s just really hurt. All of his siblings are. It’s hard on my mom. That was her oldest grandbaby.”

“His grandparents, his uncles, they don’t bring it up,” she adds. “I think everybody just tries to keep moving, keep going.”