When Gabe Mukendi’s family came to Kentwood from the refugee camp in Malawi in 2015, Mr. Lyoya was one of the first visitors. He brought the family two Android phones and a Little Caesars pepperoni pizza. Gabe, now 17, said he practiced cutting hair on Mr Lyoya, who lived with the family for years.
“He was a really cool guy, and he was very generous,” Gabe said.
But Mr. Lyoya also got into trouble. In August 2015, when he was 19, he was charged with drunk driving but failed to appear at three subsequent hearings. He has been arrested more than a dozen times, mostly for car-related offences, but he has also been charged with three domestic violence charges, including a 2017 case in which a police officer said Mr Lyoya was “highly intoxicated”. Fines exploded. He was in prison – a few days here, a month there. Drug abuse and alcohol tests were ordered twice; the results are not public.
Daniel Burns, a defense attorney who represented Mr Lyoya in an early case, said he first met Mr Lyoya in the lobby of Kentwood District Court.
“He was confused about his case and struggling,” said Mr. Burns, adding that Mr. Lyoya appeared sincere and hardworking. “He presents himself with an innocence. I think it’s the language. He takes his time to answer to make sure he calculates everything, gets everything right.”
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 home and his employer for a year, something he called “Mondel Service,” which didn’t exist. He said he makes $320 a week. He later worked in a turkey processing factory in 2018 but left the company after a colleague stabbed him in the stomach, his family said. More recently, his parents said he worked at an auto parts manufacturer.
In August 2020, he wrote on Facebook that he wanted to stop messing around as a firstborn son. By then he had fathered two daughters. “This year I’m trying,” he wrote. He added, “We can be average.”