A Georgia mother is devastated after finding her 13-year-old son dead from a gun shot wound in his bedroom. Shaniqua Stephens told Atlanta’s NBC 11 her teenage son, Malachi Hemphill, had just taken out the trash Monday evening (April 11), and then about 10 minutes later she heard a shot go off.
“I heard a big boom. I couldn’t tell if it was a gun shot or what,” Stephens recalled. “I just knew that it was something that was wrong.”
Stephens and her daughter then ran upstairs and called out for Malachai. After not getting a response, she said she kicked down the door and saw her son in a pool of blood.
“My daughter screamed and said, ‘Mom turn his phone off!’ As I proceeded to look at his phone he was on Instagram Live.”
Malachai was rushed to nearby Grady Hospital where he died. Shortly after, about 40 to 50 neighborhood kids– who were most likely watching the Instagram live-stream when Malachai shot himself–arrived at the house. Stephens told News 11 that someone asked Malachai why didn’t he put a clip in the gun, but when he did, the gun went off.
Detectives are working to find out how Malachai got a hold of the gun. Yet when asked by law enforcement what her son’s Instagram name was, Stephens drew a blank.
“I couldn’t tell him what Malachi’s Instagram name was because he would make up so many different pages,” Stephens said. “Monitor their phones, just monitor your children. More now than anything.”