Matima Miller, a.k.a. Swavy, was shot and killed in the middle of day in 2021

NEED TO KNOW

• Swavy, whose real name was Matima Miller, was a popular TikToker with over 2 million followers
• The young man was shot and killed on a July morning in 2021
• With community support, investigators soon found his killer, who was also connected to a slew of gang-related crimes

Matima Miller, who was commonly known online as Swavy, and his best friend Quan, were walking home from McDonald’s when someone wearing a red hoodie came up to them.

The next thing Quan knew, his best friend, whom he considered his older brother, was lying face down on the pavement with gunshots to the chest as the gunman ran away.

At the time of the murder, Swavy was a 19-year-old TikTok pioneer for his videos under the username @babyface.s. He was loved by his over 2.3 million TikTok followers and his 300,000 Instagram followers, who enjoyed his dance videos and comedy sketches.

That day, July 5, 2021, the Wilmington Police Department responded to a 10:42 a.m. call that someone had been shot and identified Swavy as the victim. He died of his injuries in a hospital that morning.

“He was taken away from us due to a senseless act of gun violence,” Swavy's brother, Rahkim Clark, wrote on the family's GoFundMe. “The family is working diligently to get justice for Swavy. This is just the beginning.”

Five years later, Swavy's family told their story in the third episode of the second season of Discovery+’s Deadly Influence: The Social Media Murders, which debuted on June 15.

“He was funny, goofy, caring,” Quan said in the doc. “He would always be there for my rescue.”

Here’s what to know about Swavy's murder.

Israel Lecompte fatally shot Swavy in July 2021

Swavy was returning home with Quan after going to McDonald’s for breakfast on July 5, 2021, when a man holding a gun approached them.

“I jumped,” Quan said in Deadly Influence. “[Swavy's] first instinct was to grab [the gun] and try to do something.”

Swavy was shot three times in the chest, his mom, Chanelle Clark, said, and was taken to the hospital in Newark, Del., where he was declared dead. She also told CBS Philly that she witnessed the shooting.

“I felt like my whole world just got crushed,” Swavy's sister, Qua’naijha Miller, said in Deadly Influence.

The prosecutor, who said Swavy had been effectively "executed," later claimed in court that the TikToker was killed because of his friendship with Quinton Dorsey, a 22-year-old aspiring fashion designer, who had been shot and killed in Wilmington’s East Side neighborhood on July 2.

Dorsey had started a clothing brand called Bag Season, which Miller promoted on his social platforms.

“They both were determined to make it out,” Dorsey's aunt, Taun-Yea, said.

Dorsey was shot in front of family members in Wilmington while he was hosting a pop-up shop outside his grandmother’s home.

“It was definitely targeted,” Taun-Yea claimed. “Whoever shot him, they had been circling and driving around, waiting for him to come out.”

Dorsey’s grandmother, Deborah Cleveland, told police she could identify the killer, and selected Israel Lecompte from a photo lineup a few hours after the shooting, Delaware Online reported. She told police that Dorsey warned the shooter that his grandmother was in the room before he was shot, and that the shooter said, “F— your grandma.”

“I will never forget that,” Cleveland said in a police video shown in court. Lecompte was indicted on one count of illegal gang participation in addition to first degree murder, per WDEL, but neither Dorsey nor Swavy were involved in a gang.

A stolen Nissan and an Instagram Story helped name Lecompte

At the time of Swavy's killing, there was a lot of gang activity throughout Wilmington.

“Wilmington, Delaware is known as ‘Kill-aware,’ ‘Murdertown, USA,’ ” Qua’naijha said in Deadly Influence. “Where we live, there’s only two ways to go: Either you’re going to be something positive, or you’re going to be sucked into your environment and join a gang.”

Swavy had been in situations in the past where he’d seen gang members drive by and shoot at other people in the area, so he was very aware of how dangerous these gangs were.

“He was scared,” Rahkim said.

After Dorsey and Swavy's murders, the community came together to assist investigators in finding the killer. On July 1, a black Nissan with tinted windows was stolen in the area and that same vehicle was spotted near the murders of Swavy and Dorsey, per Delaware Online. The shell casings found at both crime scenes also matched, and witnesses for both murders said the shooter was wearing a red Bag Season hoodie.

Around the same time, Quan forwarded an Instagram Story to Rahkim and said it was of the person who shot Swavy. Rahkim took a screenshot of the post and showed it to the police. The Nissan thief and shooter was then identified as Lecompte, a member of the NorthPak gang.

Lecompte was indicted on Nov. 8, 2021, according to the Delaware government website.

Lecompte received two life sentences without parole

On April 4, 2024, a New Castle County jury found then-20-year-old Lecompte guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Swavy and Dorsey, per Delaware Online. Lecompte was also convicted of other charges related to a nonfatal shooting and multiple robberies that he perpetrated in the summer of 2021.

“We think Israel Lecompte wanted to go out and prove his worth to his fellow gang members,” lead prosecutor Joe Grubb said in Deadly Influence. “So he went on a 10-day crime spree and took it upon himself to rob, shoot, steal, and promote the gang continuously on Instagram.”

Lecompte, who was 18 when he murdered Swavy and Dorsey, received two life sentences without a chance of parole, plus 163 years.

“I believe that it was fueled by jealousy,” Qua’naijha said. “If I don’t have it — if someone else has it — I gotta get it by any means … Where we come from, that’s the mentality people grow up with.”

At the time of his sentencing, Lecompte was also imprisoned on another 27-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for another fatal shooting in 2021, per Delaware Online.

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