When Gabe Mukendi’s family arrived in Kentwood from Malawi refugee camp in 2015, Mr Lyoya was one of the first to visit. He brought the family two Android phones and a pepperoni pizza from Little Caesars. Gabe, now 17, said he had practiced cutting hair with Mr Lyoya, who had lived with the family for many years.
“He was a really cool guy, and he was very generous,” said Gabe.
But Mr. Lyoya also got into trouble. In August 2015, when he was 19, he was charged with drink-driving, but failed to appear at three consecutive hearings. He was arrested more than a dozen times, mostly for crimes involving cars, but he also faced three domestic violence charges, including a 2017 case in which a police officer said Mr Lyoya was “extremely intoxicated”. Fines went up. He was in jail – a few days here, a month there. Drug abuse and alcohol ratings were ordered twice; the results are not public.
Daniel Burns, a lawyer who represented Mr Lyoya in an early case, said he first encountered Mr Lyoya in the lobby of the Kentwood District Court.
“He was confused about his case and he had problems,” said Mr. Burns, adding that Mr. Lyoya had seemed sincere and hardworking. “He presents with an innocence. I think it’s the language. He takes the time to respond, to make sure he calculates everything and understands everything correctly.”
Despite losing his driver’s license, Mr. Lyoya continued to drive, apparently in borrowed cars: a silver Chrysler, a white Honda, a blue Jeep, a black Ford.
His jobs were factory gigs. When Mr Lyoya filled out a court form in mid-2016, he misspelled both the street name of his apartment and his year-long employer, something he called “Mondel Service,” which did not exist. He said he was making $320 a week. He later worked at a turkey processing plant in 2018, but left after a colleague stabbed him in the stomach, his family said. More recently, his parents said, he worked for an auto parts manufacturer.
In August 2020, he wrote on Facebook that he wanted to stop screwing up the firstborn son. He had already fathered two daughters by then. “This year I’m trying,” he wrote. He added: “We can be average.”
