Malayya Williams Issah, 9, female, Black/African American, was found shot to death on the night of October 18, 2017, inside a Forrest City, Arkansas apartment alongside her 6-year-old sister, Zhanasia, and their mother, Nashae Williams. Officers had responded to reports of gunfire and discovered that each victim had been shot multiple times. The killings devastated the community; Malayya’s school held a balloon release in her honor, and funeral services for the family were announced in
Forrest City soon after.
Detectives quickly focused on a suspect: 30-year-old Cordale Stacy, identified by family and police as Nashae’s live-in boyfriend. The morning after the shootings, Stacy surrendered to Forrest City police and was jailed pending formal charges. Early reports described the scene as a triple homicide inside the family’s home, and authorities publicly confirmed that Stacy was the person of interest who had come forward following the attack.
Within days, prosecutors charged Stacy as a habitual offender with three counts of capital murder and related offenses. The State later announced it would seek the death penalty, and alternative capital-murder theories were submitted to the jury for the two child victims. After trial in St. Francis County Circuit Court, a jury found Stacy guilty on all three counts of capital murder and imposed three life-without-parole sentences, plus a consecutive fifteen-year firearm enhancement. In December 2023, the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences. Stacy is listed in Department of Corrections records and housed at Varner Supermax.
In the days that followed the crime, the city mourned Malayya as a joyful elementary school student remembered by classmates and teachers. Obituary and funeral notices reflected the family’s deep ties in Forrest City and the heartbreak of two young sisters lost with their mother on the same night.
