Malikah Shabazz, the daughter of the late civil rights leader Malcolm X, was found dead in her Brooklyn home on Monday, NBC 4 New York reports. She was 56.
Police officials said she was found unconscious and unresponsive by her daughter. Per the station, a medical examiner responded to the scene and said the incident did not appear suspicious. The cause of death has yet to be determined.
Shabazz and her twin sister Malaak are the youngest of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz’s six children. Betty Shabazz died in 1997.
“I’m deeply saddened by the death of Malikah Shabazz,” Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., wrote on Twitter. “My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr. Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X. Dr. Shabazz was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Brother Malcolm was assassinated. Be at peace, Malikah.”
The news comes in the wake of new developments in the murder case of Malcolm X. Last week, two of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X — Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam were exonerated. Aziz and Islam were both sentenced to life in prison, and each served more than two decades, although they always maintained their innocence. Aziz, now 83, was paroled in 1983, and Islam was released in 1987 (he died in 2009). A third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim, was also found guilty of murder, and sentenced to life in prison.
No physical evidence tied Aziz or Islam to the murder or crime scene. At one point while on the stand, Halim even confessed to his involvement and insisted that Aziz and Islam were innocent.
Halim had said his co-conspirators were from New Jersey, while Islam and Aziz both attended a Nation of Islam mosque in Harlem. However, no one else was arrested. Halim was paroled in 2010.
Malcolm X was killed on Feb. 21, 1965 after he began delivering a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York.
This is a developing story…