NEW YORK — Malcolm X ‘s daughter Malikah Shabazz suffered from a long-term illness before her death, NYPD Commissioner Demot Shea said Tuesday.
Shabazz, 56, was found dead Monday by her daughter, Bettih-Bahiyah Shabazze, 23, in the home they shared in Brooklyn. Shabazz, along with her twin sister Malaak, were the youngest of Malcolm X’s six daughters.
Shea said that police learned from “other authorities, the medical examiner’s office and talking to the family” that Shabazz “had been ill for a period of time and at this point nothing appears suspicious.”
The city medical examiner said no cause of death has been determined. “We are investigating and the cause of death is pending the final results of additional testing, but the death does not appear to be suspicious following initial review,” that office said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., offered her condolences. “I’m deeply saddened by the death of Malikah Shabazz,” she wrote. “My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr. Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X. Dr. Shabazz was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Brother Malcolm was assassinated. Be at peace, Malikah.”
Malaak and Malikah were born seven months after their father was assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965.
Her death comes just four days after a Manhattan court exonerated two of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X.
Malcolm X, 39, was shot 16 times before a crowd of 400 people in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom, including his pregnant wife and three of their daughters.
On Thursday, at the request of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, a judge vacated the convictions of Muhammed Aziz and Khalil Islam. Aziz, 83, was paroled in 1985 after two decades in prison, but long maintained his innocence, as did Islam, who was paroled in 1987 and died in 2009.
Mujahid Abdul Halim, who admitted repeatedly shooting the civil rights leader as he lay on the ballroom stage, acknowledged Aziz and Islam were innocent as they waited together in a cell after the killing.
Malikah Shabazz and her daughter were arrested in a Walmart parking lot in Maryland in 2017 on animal cruelty charges after authorities said several injured dogs were found inside a stolen U-Haul truck they were driving. The outcome of that case was not immediately clear.
In 2011, she was sentenced to five years' probation for swindling $55,000 from an older Queens woman.
In June, she pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge, admitting she opened up credit cards in the name of Khaula Bakr, 70, the wife of one of the slain civil rights leader’s bodyguards.
Queens prosecutors say Shabazz conned Bakr into turning over her personal information by telling her she needed it for child care paperwork. Bakr realized something was wrong when she got a letter from her bank demanding $30,000.
In 1998, on the one year anniversary of the death of her mother Betty Shabazz, Malikah noted she named her then-6-month-old daughter after her mother. “It’s not a sad day,” she said. “A lot of people realized how important her life was and is, just like my father. He’s everlasting and so is she. She is still her.”
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