Ta’Lela Fontia Stevenson did what most big sisters would do if their little sister was being bullied.
The 19-year-old, who gave birth to a baby girl less than a month ago, was stabbed to death on Sunday after a fight broke out between several girls near their Atlanta-area home.
Stevenson was reportedly trying to protect her 14-year-old sister, who had an ongoing dispute with bullies for a couple of weeks.
“She came home and told her sisters, and they just came out to say, ‘Leave her alone,’” Stevenson’s mother, Alfonza Simmons, told WSB-TV.
“They were all right here in front of my house,” Simmons added. “I’m, like, ‘Y’all need to move,’ but they just lashed out and my daughter was standing right here and the girl ran around and attacked my daughter.”
Police arrived on the scene in the Carroll Heights section of Atlanta around 7 p.m. on Sunday to find 18-year-old Garry Banks with a stab wound to the arm and Stevenson, who was lying in the driveway, stabbed in the neck when she tried to pull an attacker off her younger sister, reports CBS.
She died shortly after at Grady Hospital, where Banks was treated for non-life-threatening injuries before being released.
Jashaunte Marshall, 14, who reportedly fled the scene, was charged with felony murder in the death of Stevenson.
It’s unclear if she has a lawyer and if there are also charges being brought against her for the stabbing of Banks.
“She was a bright young lady looking to get ready to make a future for herself,” Simmons said about her 19-year-old daughter, who was recently accepted into a nursing program at Atlanta Technical College and gave birth to a newborn daughter named Riley on August 12. “It’s wrong and it’s cruel and it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t.”
Marshall is currently being held at Fulton County Juvenile Detention Center in Atlanta.
