new haven

Mother Mourns Slain Hillhouse High School Sophomore

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“He was all the time here, playing the basketball, and they killed him.”

Nellya Mbala can’t believe her only child is gone. She paced a driveway Tuesday afternoon in the spot where 16-year-old Marc Mulongo was killed. She said she could still feel him there.

“For me it’s like a dream. I don’t believe yet,” said Mbala. “For me, it’s like I’m going to see him again. It’s just like he’s going to come back home for me.”

Mulongo was a sophomore at Hillhouse High School. She says he went to get something to eat with someone Monday after playing basketball in the driveway. The family believes that when he got home, the car he was in was targeted.

“It was a mistake about the true person you were trying to shoot,” said John Murphy, Mbala’s boyfriend. Murphy considered Mulongo his son.

“We were always together doing everything together and making his life a good life,” said Murphy. "He played very good basketball.”

In an update Monday night, New Haven Police Assistant Chief Manmeet Bhagtana said it was likely a targeted incident, but couldn’t say who was the intended victim.

Dara Goodman is frustrated by Mulongo’s death.

“It doesn’t make sense. This was a neighborhood where we all lived in peace at one time,” said Goodman. She said it’s time to take back the community.

“I’ve lived in Newhallville all my life and it’s never been as bad as it seems now," Goodman said.

Detectives are looking for video camera footage and are making efforts to talk to witnesses.

“If anyone has any information regarding this incident or anything suspicious that occurred prior to this incident we ask that you call it in,” said Bhagtana. “Just know that the police is here to support you, we just need your support in return to give any information possible.”

Mbala is asking for that help, too, to find out who killed her son.

“I know people… people know something. I know that,” she said. “The killer is just around us. I know he’s not too far.”

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