The family of a 16-year-old boy fatally injured after what police have described as an “altercation” involving a group of male youths says funeral services for Malik McDonnell-Mills will be public.
Arrangements have been made for Saturday at Northview Funeral Chapel at 1490 Highbury Ave. N.
“Malik knows a lot of people. I was shocked that he knows quite a bit of people, and I don’t know his friends, all of them. So I just want to make it open to the public,” his stepmother Kissie Leitch says.
Leitch, who has been in Malik’s life since he was a baby, says the showing of support at a candlelit vigil for her stepson was a surprise and comfort to her.
“That’s when I opened up my eyes, like, ‘Oh my God, Malik knew all these people?’ He touched everybody’s heart. Like, he touched everybody.”
Malik was a lover of all things music and wanted to become a rapper or music producer, she says. He loved video games and was close with his five siblings and four stepsiblings. He was intelligent, fluent in three languages, and had a knack for technology, often helping Leitch with her computer.
“He’s very, very polite and very well-mannered, very kind. Had a good heart. Always helped you if you needed help, like he’d offer, go out of his way, ‘Do you need any help? Do you want me to do this?’”
Leitch says Malik’s father has been really taking his death hard, crying often as they make funeral arrangements. Their focus now is on providing Malik with a proper burial, which she says he would have wanted.
“We just came back from deciding the headstone and stuff and finalizing the graveyard at St. Peter’s Cemetery,” she said Tuesday.
“It’s quite expensive to bury somebody. I just can’t believe how expensive it is. I think it’s outrageous, like, that’s crazy. But I just want to give Malik the proper burial that he deserves.”
A GoFundMe set up to cover funeral costs, with any excess funds going to college funds for his three younger siblings, has raised over $9,000 as of Thursday morning.
A viewing will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, followed by a service at 11 a.m. at Northview Funeral Chapel at 1490 Highbury Avenue North.
Leitch first learned of her stepson’s death from his mother but she was in disbelief, she says. As she was about to leave for the hospital to confirm the news, police officers arrived at the door.
“I just broke down and cried. I can’t believe it actually happened to him at 16. I can’t believe it.”
Leitch says Malik had been getting into “a little bit of trouble,” but like a “typical teenager,” and that she never thought something like this would happen in London.
McDonnell-Mills died in hospital the evening of Aug. 9. Police say he died of injuries from an “altercation” involving “a group of male youths” in the area of King Edward Avenue and Thompson Road.
Three suspects, 18-year-old Treyton Hoffman and two 16-year-old boys, are charged with manslaughter in the case. The 16-year-old suspects are not being named in accordance with the Youth Criminal Justice Act.