Beverly Todd who is best known for her roles in “Lean On Me,” “Moving,” Bucket List,” and “A Piece Of The Action” has had to go through something no parent should ever have to experience– the death of her son who was just 18 years old.
Beverly’s son, Malik Smith, was murdered in 1989 when the actress was in the middle of promoting the 1989 film, “Lean On Me.” Unfortunately, the details surrounding Malik’s death, and the justice he did not get, are still very relevant issues in today’s society.
Malik was killed during a club brawl while he was on vacation in Salt Lake City, UT, during his freshmen year in college. During the fight with an 18-year-old, Malik was punched hard in the head and fell back, hitting his head on the floor, leaving him brain dead as he lay on the dance floor of the club.
Soon after his murder trial, Beverly Todd began to voice her frustration and her disappointment with the type of justice, or lack thereof, that her son received after the court gave a very weak sentence to his murderer.
Malik’s reported killer, John Leota, was also 18 at the time of Malk’s murder. Leota’s original sentence of second degree murder was reduced to misdemeanor homicide; and he only served EIGHT MONTHS IN JAIL for Malik’s death.
Beverly Todd expressed her outrage to the LA Times:
‘”A misdemeanor!” Todd says, with disbelief. “That’s for throwing paper on the sidewalk or for spitting, that’s not for taking someone’s life.” But instead of being disabled by rage or indignation, she has been working to have the homicide laws of Utah toughened.’
THE DEADLY INCIDENT WAS SUPPOSEDLY OVER JEALOUSLY OF MALIK’S DANCING SKILLS:
‘Malik was a terrific dancer, and that was apparently what provoked the young man who killed him. While on vacation, Malik and a friend had gone with the friend’s cousin to a teen-age dance club (no alcohol) in suburban Salt Lake City. Malik had stayed behind when his companions left to get something to eat. He stayed because the deejay finally played a song he especially liked, and he got up and danced, all by himself. He was having fun….The 800-page transcript of Leota’s trial doesn’t answer all the questions it raises. Malik may or may not have beckoned girlfriends of Leota to join him.
Beverly Todd and her son, Malik Smith [ The Malik’s Voice for Peace Organization]
Leota, who had a long history of trouble with the law, was angry. He’d fought with two other young men that same night in Club 35…A witness said Malik was backing away when Leota hit him so hard that Malik was lifted six inches off the ground. Malik’s head struck something as he fell. Then Leota, who testified that he had not intended to kill Malik, kicked him in the head. When Todd got the phone call that every parent fears most, Malik was only being kept alive by machines. He died two days later, on March 20, 1989.’
Beverly says Utah’s justice system during that time was heavily biased, based on religion and racial tensions. Her son’s murderer was a member of the popular church in Utah at that time, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon religion). This is what she said about that:
“I really feel that we didn’t get fairness in Utah,” says Todd, who points to Leota’s conviction on a misdemeanor charge and his one-year sentence as evidence of pro-Mormon bias in the Utah courtroom.
There was also racial tension throughout the trial, she says. Leota is of Tongan ancestry. After friends of Todd and Keiser, including Whoopi Goldberg, wrote to the judge, protesting Leota’s conviction on a misdemeanor, members of the Polynesian community in Utah held a press conference and described Todd and her friends as “wealthy Hollywood blacks” who were trying to deny Leota justice by putting pressure on the judge. A Polynesian attorney told the press: “We, the Polynesian community and citizens of Utah, say to these celebrities, Utah is a law-abiding state. We demand you let the judicial process go forward. We do not want the legal process to be influenced in any way.”‘
Todd denied that and said that both she and her husband kept a low key profile throughout the trial for this reason:
“You get very fearful about causing too much of a stir in terms of making it a mistrial or doing something else that’s going to jeopardize the outcome. You want everything to turn out right so that you get justice. And so when they started complaining about these people coming up from Hollywood that were from the NAACP, we asked them not to come back because we didn’t want to cloud the issues or to cover up what was the real issue, which was the murder,” says Beverly Todd.
This is just another reminder that although it has been over three decades since Beverly’s beloved son was killed, the more things change, the more they sadly stay the same. Unfortunately, there is still an increasingly growing number of parents who are in the exact same helpless position as Beverly Todd was in when her son’s life was reduced to an outcome of a misdemeanor charge and his killer spending just 8 short months in jail.
Although Beverly Todd has continued to work and looks amazing at the age of 76 years young, she said that she will always have pain over the death of her son: “Because your child is dead, doesn’t mean that you stop being a parent. You still think about your kid. It’s just that the thoughts have no place to go.”
Beverly Todd
