By Micha Green, AFRO Washington, D.C. Editor, mgreen@afro.com
Police and family members alike are searching for answers, motive and more after Natina Kiah, a mother of four and security guard at a D.C. homeless shelter, was stabbed to death on March 5.
After admitting to his crime when pursued hours later, officers believe that Kiah’s murderer is 43-year-old Lamont Stephenson, who spent years on the FBI 10 Most Wanted list, after killing his fiancée and her dog in 2014 in New Jersey.
Natina Kiah, 40, was stabbed to death March 5. Lamont Stephenson, 43, who was on the FBI 10 Most Wanted list, admitted to killing Kiah when he was apprehended hours later in Lanham, MD. (Courtesy Photo)
It is believed that Stephenson has been living in the Washington Metropolitan Area after fleeing New Jersey for his alleged crime five years ago.
Stephenson met Kiah a few weeks ago at a D.C. homeless shelter where they both worked according to WUSA 9 News. Kiah was a security guard and Stephenson was a handyman.
Police found Kiah’s body after getting a call about a welfare check on March 6 on the 5000 block of D Street Southeast, according to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. A little after 8:30 p.m., Kiah was found with a stab wound and when D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded they reported that the “victim displayed no signs consistent with life.”
The mother of four, ages 12, 14, 16 and 21, leaves behind a family begging for answers as to how this could have happened, particularly by someone who had been on the FBI 10 Most Wanted List.
Kiah’s cousin presumes that she had become skeptical of Stephenson’s past when the crime occurred, and wonder how the homeless shelter was unaware, according to WUSA9. Her family contends that a poster of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted should be displayed at shelters.
Kiah’s death is the 31st out of 32 murders that have happened in the District this year, according to D.C. Witness, which tracks local homicides. The District of Columbia’s homicide rate is on the rise having increased about 88 percent since this time last year, when 17 people had been murdered.
