On a sorrowful evening in Memphis, Tennessee, the life of 38-year-old Samantha Knight was tragically cut short. On November 20, 2017, Knight was walking along Jackson Avenue near Chelsea when she was brutally shot in the neck and robbed of her bag. The contents of her bag were heartbreakingly simple: two Bibles and a collection of personal papers. The senseless act of violence left the community in shock and mourning the loss of a woman whose final moments were marked by such cruelty.
The investigation into Knight's death led to the arrests of four young men: Jutarian Malone, 20, Earl King, 21, Cortez Folson, 20, and Ryan Mobley, 21. In August 2018, the Shelby County District Attorney's Office announced that a grand jury had indicted Malone, King, and Folson on charges of first-degree felony murder in connection with Knight's death. The indictment painted a grim picture of the events leading to the fatal shooting, describing it as a robbery that escalated to murder.
Ryan Mobley, while not indicted for Knight's murder, faced a series of other serious charges alongside the other three men. These included attempted first-degree murder, attempted especially aggravated robbery, and employment of a firearm in the commission of a dangerous felony. These charges stemmed from an incident that occurred the night before Knight's death, on November 19, 2017. During that event, the four men were allegedly involved in the beating and shooting of a man outside a food market in the Frayser area. In an exchange of gunfire, that victim was wounded in the calf, and Mobley himself sustained a gunshot wound to his leg. Investigators stated that the following night, while Mobley was recovering from his injury, Malone, King, and Folson were in the same vehicle when they encountered and tragically ended the life of Samantha Knight. The subsequent legal outcomes for the indicted individuals have not been publicly reported.
