Slain Woman's Last Minutes Described

Argument With Boyfriend Ended in Killing, Suicide in Charles

In the month that Marvin Marshall stayed at Luqman Malik's duplex in Charles County, Malik said, he never heard Marshall raise his voice.

He let Marshall play with his three young children and feed them. Marshall had come to the Waldorf duplex with his girlfriend, Malik's sister, as they hunted for an apartment in Southern Maryland. And Malik's sister, Safiyyah Y. Malik Rashid, told her brother that she was happy and in love with her boyfriend.

"He was okay with me," Malik said. "Who knew it would turn out like this?"

After an argument Wednesday evening, Marshall, 24, shot Rashid, 25, several times inside Malik's home, then shot himself, according to the Charles County Sheriff's Office. Rashid's killing is the first homicide in Charles County this year.

As he talked yesterday about his sister's death and recounted finding the bodies when he walked into his kitchen, Malik could not hold back his tears.

"She never told me," he said. "She had to know what kind of person he was."

On Wednesday afternoon, Malik picked up his girlfriend, Chanda Wilson, stopped by his job at a limousine company and came home about 6:15 p.m. When he opened the door, he noticed the silence: The television was off, and his three children and a 16-year-old nephew were not downstairs. Then, through the kitchen door, he saw his sister on the floor.

The nephew, Raheem Malik, told Wilson that the argument between the couple started over Rashid's car, a white 1979 Lincoln Continental. As the couple argued, Rashid threw her keys at Marshall, who punched her in the face, Wilson said. In the course of the fight, someone ripped the door from the kitchen to the garage off its hinges.

The nephew tried to break up the fight, but Marshall, who had a handgun, told him to go upstairs and stay with the other children, Wilson said. While upstairs, he heard three gunshots, she said, and also heard Marshall call on his cell phone, asking someone to take care of his daughter and his mother. Then he shot himself, police said.

The case is considered closed because the responsible person is dead, said sheriff's office spokeswoman Kristen Timko.

Rashid, one of 16 siblings and the youngest daughter, grew up in Southeast Washington and Prince George's County. She left Duval High School before she graduated but received her general equivalency diploma, her brother said. She was unemployed but had just applied to work at McDonald's, he said. She had two children.

Rashid's real passion, her brother said, was hip-hop. She was an aspiring rapper who had recorded CDs, opened for larger acts and met with Damon Dash, former Roc-A-Fella Records chief executive. "She could flow off the top of her head," Wilson said.

"She was very much free-spirited. She could turn anything into a joke," her brother said. "Our family is devastated."

In the past, Marshall had been charged with drug possession, armed robbery and first-degree assault, among other charges. And Prince George's County police had a warrant for him on a first-degree attempted murder charge, according to court documents.

Malik said that since the shooting, his sister's friends have told him Rashid acknowledged she was afraid of her boyfriend, but that was not known within the family.

"Tell somebody," Malik said. "If anyone is ever in this situation, tell somebody. Please."