Six months later
DUNN – Four-year-old Amiyah Malloy smiled as she looked at the photo of her uncles.
“That’s Derrick,” she said, pointing to the man on the left. “He talks to me in his picture sometimes.”
Amiyah is referring to the video chats she used to have with her uncle, Derrick Malloy. His “picture” would talk to her, then.
She often talks to his photographs now, saying “hello,” telling him she loves him. He doesn’t respond.
She’s young, but she’s painfully aware he’s no longer there.
Derrick Malloy was gunned down in front of his house on King Street in broad daylight on Jan. 20. Six months later, his family still waits for justice. Police have made no arrests.
“Our biggest hurdle is a witness that will not come forward,” said Lt. Jimmy Page, who is leading the investigation of the case at the Dunn Police Department. “When people are not willing to come forward and talk about the case, it makes it very hard for us to prove anything.”
Officers have executed search warrants, hoping for clues that will lead to a killer. But until all of the results are in … they wait.
The wait has “been hard,” said Nellie Malloy, Derrick Malloy’s mother. “I just want some answers.”
Unanswered questions and undelivered justice continue to haunt the Malloy family.
“It seems to be a cold case and everybody’s forgetting it. Before I die, I want to know who shot him and why they shot him,” she said. “I just want to know what happened to my child.”
Derrick Malloy was carrying a plate of food from his mother’s house into his home at 803 N. King Ave. when he was ambushed by a gunman. He was shot multiple times. The plate of food landed on the ground near a growing pool of blood. He was able to fire back, wounding a man at the scene.
The man was sent to Betsy Johnson Hospital where he was treated and released. He refused to talk to police.
“I just want to know what happened,” Nellie Malloy said. “And I want somebody to pay for what they did to him. … They didn’t have to shoot him and leave him there to die.”
Derrick Malloy died on his way to WakeMed Health where his mother and Shinika Malloy, Derrick’s niece and Amiyah’s mother, waited more than two hours to learn he was dead.
Waiting for justice has been hard on the entire family.
Shinika Malloy awoke one night to Amiyah crying. She went downstairs to get her some milk, but when she brought it up to her room, she saw her young daughter clutching the newspaper that had her uncle’s face on it.
She was “crying like an adult,” she said. “I had to walk out.”
On March 19, when Derrick Malloy would have turned 35, the family went to his grave to release some balloons.
“Amiyah was so glad to get out of the seatbelt. She ran up there to the grave. She thought she was going to see him,” Nellie Malloy said.
But he wasn’t there.
“We let the balloons go and she looked at me and said, ‘Grandma, I’m ready to go.’”
When Nellie Malloy put her in the car, Amiyah explained her soured mood: “Grandma, I wanted to see Uncle Derrick’s face, his legs and his shoes.”
She wanted to see all of him.
Not a grave.
“Derrick didn’t bother nobody. He stayed home. My older son would try to get him to go out and he wouldn’t go out,” Nellie Malloy said. “He was a homebody. … I guess he sorta took that from me.”
The family misses him, but the police are determined not to miss his killer.
Officers never stopped working the case, Page said. “We will continue to work on it until everything is exhausted as far as what we can do.”
Dunn Crime Stoppers offers rewards for information that leads to arrests in cases. Police are asking for anyone with any information to come forward.
Callers can remain anonymous on the Crime Stoppers tip line at 910-892-2222. Anyone with information can also call the Dunn Police Department at 910-892-2399 and ask for Lt. Jimmy Page or Investigator Megan Dean.
-Dunn Daily Record
