How the paths of 10-year-old Malayshia Allford and a Philadelphia teacher tragically collided

It started with a punch.

Malayshia Allford’s parents were arguing in the parking lot of a Springfield Township strip mall when someone called police. Her mother tried to board a SEPTA bus with the girl — but her father pulled them back to the sidewalk. Then, he struck the mother in the head, police said.

That 2020 incident, and the investigations that followed, prompted a caseworker to remove Malayshia, then just 4 years old, from her mother’s home in Philadelphia.

Over the next six years of her short and tumultuous life, she would be shuffled through at least three homes by Philadelphia’s child-welfare system. On Nov. 5, one of those foster parents, Carprice Williams, was charged with killing the 10-year-old girl and leaving her body in the trunk of a car.

Williams was a Philadelphia fifth-grade teacher whose disciplinary style, including withholding lunch from students, worried colleagues and drew complaints from some children and parents. She had been a foster mother to at least four children dating back to 2019 or earlier. In 2021, another child who was placed in her care was hospitalized with what a doctor deemed near-fatal injuries.

The story of how their paths collided raises serious questions about the systems the city and state have in place to keep children safe, and to vet those who care for them.

Some of Malayshia’s relatives had not seen the child since she was a 4-year-old with a heart-melting smile and an affinity for Minnie Mouse. That’s how long she had been in the child-welfare system.

A caseworker had temporarily removed Malayshia from her mother’s home after the domestic incident. In April 2021, a Philadelphia Family Court judge found the home unsafe, noting that drugs had been found in the child’s bedroom and that the mother failed to seek care after she suspected her daughter had been sexually abused.

Malayshia was placed with a relative, and allowed weekly supervised visits with her parents.

The court noted that Malayshia’s parents, Everine Brown-Ward and Nazir Allford, had not cooperated with the child-welfare agency, and had sent threatening messages, including a shooting threat, to the relative who was caring for the child. The father also assaulted a child-welfare caseworker, according to court records. Allford’s brother, Nafis Horne, said the parents were grieving and not ready to comment.

A lawyer, Michael Graves Jr., was appointed to represent Malayshia’s interests, according to court records dating to 2021. Graves did not respond to messages.

Frank Cervone, who for years led the Support Center for Child Advocates, said his office and the city’s public defender both require lawyers to conduct twice-a-year in-home visits. But there are no such standards for private, court-appointed lawyers such as Graves.

“Most of them simply don’t do that,” Cervone said. “They don’t see it as part of their practice.”

In 2022, both parents were arrested after taking Malayshia from a supervised visit at Catholic Community Services in Northeast Philadelphia. Both pleaded guilty to interfering with custody. After that, they no longer were allowed visits, relatives said.

Still, multiple family members said, there were other options for the girl, who had three siblings — two in foster homes, and one living with a maternal aunt, Yolanda Brown.

By last year, Malayshia was in a different foster home. But caseworkers found that she was physically and sexually abused there, according to Nadeem Bezar, a lawyer representing Malayshia’s estate.

That’s why she was removed from that home and placed with Williams, he said.

A fifth-grade teacher at Lewis C. Cassidy Academics Plus in Overbrook, Williams, 36, was known as a disciplinarian with what some coworkers described as an imperious attitude.

She demanded to be called Dr. Williams, according to two coworkers and a parent, and touted a doctoral degree from Drexel University on her LinkedIn page. Asked to confirm that, a Drexel spokesperson said only that Williams had earned a master’s degree from the university in 2015.

A parent and a school staffer both said they had complained to the principal about what they viewed as harassment by Williams, and believed others had as well.

Cassidy parent Justin Forte said Williams seemed frazzled by her large class and ill-equipped to manage behavioral issues.

“She wasn’t handling things right,” said Forte, who said Williams had singled his 11-year-old son out for reprimands and repeatedly prevented him from eating lunch, in violation of district policy.

“The first thing a teacher’s supposed to do is care for children,” he said, “and it seems like the care just wasn’t there.”

Stephen Ford, who taught fifth grade alongside Williams, said she was an effective teacher, but stern. While some other teachers try to infuse teaching with humor, he said, “I didn’t hear a lot of laughing in her room.”

A Cassidy gym teacher, Corey Blakey, who also runs after-school and summer programs, said Williams repeatedly punished students in her class by forcing them to spend their lunch period in her classroom. He said the principal ended up warning her against such discipline.

Cassidy principal Herman Douglas did not respond to a request for comment.

“She’s really possessive,” Blakey said, adding that she urged students not to join an enrichment program and told him to remove certain students from after-school programs.

After observing a tense altercation between Williams and another staffer, Blakey urged the other staffer to file a complaint, he said.

Williams attended Lower Merion High School and Rosemont College, and was first licensed as a teacher in Pennsylvania in 2013.

She was hired by the Philadelphia School District as a substitute in 2015, taught at Young Scholars Charter School for the 2015-16 school year, and was a district teacher from 2017 through 2023, including at Thomas Mifflin School in East Falls. Philadelphia School District officials declined to provide further details about her postings or to comment.

A former friend of Williams’, whose daughter was in the teacher’s fifth-grade class at Mifflin, said troubling patterns were apparent back then: Williams was harsh with some children, but overly involved with others, ordering them UberEats to her classroom and hosting them in her home.

The friend, who asked not to be identified because she did not want to be associated with Williams’ alleged criminal conduct, said her daughter and some peers were enthralled with the teacher because she was “was more on their level. If they talked to each other crazy, she did it, too.”

Then, while visiting her home, the woman said, Williams punched her daughter with a closed fist.

“I put Carprice out of my house when she punched her,” the friend said.

In 2019, Williams took in a 14-year-old foster daughter, Maria Campbell, who said Williams punished her for taking snacks — locking her in her room during the pandemic for what seemed like months and forcing her to write out an apology over and over. When she got the chance, Campbell, now 21, said, she ran away and never saw Williams again.

On June 27, 2020, Williams took in two foster children in her rented rowhouse on Simpson Street in West Philadelphia. Six months later, records show, they were removed after one was hospitalized with severe brain bleeds, malnutrition, and vitamin deficiencies that a doctor said indicated that food had been withheld. Because of the apparent abuse and neglect, a state “near fatality” review team recommended that Williams “never be permitted to care for other foster children.”

Police investigated, according to the state review, but made no arrests because the child did not disclose what caused the hemorrhaging. In October, according to a lawsuit that did not name Williams and was later settled out of court, a child protective services report laid out detailed allegations of abuse by Williams — grabbing a child by the braids and slamming her head to the floor, smacking her in the face, forcing her to squat for long stretches.

Yet, the state review team report, finalized more than a year later in November 2022, makes no mention of that information. A state spokesperson said Williams had successfully appealed the finding of child abuse and had her record expunged.

Though the state maintains a registry of foster care providers, it is not clear if the information about that incident made it into the registry. Nor is it clear whether the Family Court judge, the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS), or the foster care agency that certified Williams consulted that database. The agency, Pennsylvania Mentor, did not respond to requests for comment. Philadelphia DHS Commissioner Kimberly Ali said Saturday that she could not comment on any individual case, but that under state law it is the foster agency that is in charge of approving caregivers.

By early 2025, Williams had a young son of her own and was hired at Cassidy. And that summer, she took in another foster child, Malayshia.

She called the little girl May May. And, according to her friend, Williams said she had plans to adopt the child.

This spring, according to Blakey, Williams asked to enroll Malayshia in summer programs he runs at the school and with the Tiger Woods Foundation. That is when he got a chance to meet the girl.

Blakey was impressed by the 10-year-old’s enthusiasm and curiosity.

“She was not a perfect student, but near to that. She was happy-go-lucky. She wanted to be in the program. She wanted to do all the activities. She wanted to do everything,” he said. “She was a really good kid.”

But Malayshia did not show up at Robert E. Lamberton School on Friday, Oct. 23.

Over that weekend, two witnesses who visited the home saw the child in bed, not moving, according to a police report. Williams did not report the girl missing until Monday afternoon. And when she did, she told Malayshia’s aunt that the girl’s parents had taken her.

As police, FBI, relatives, and neighbors began a frantic search, according to the report, Williams faked affectionate texts to cover her tracks. One phony text from Malayshia read, “Mommy I know you are waiting for me to come home but my family they don’t want me to be adopted. … I love you.”

Days later, investigators identified a man caught on video leaving Williams’ home dragging a cumbersome, oddly shaped bag with a long strand of braided hair trailing from it. The man, a relative of Williams’, eventually led them to a car parked in Lindenwold, South Jersey. Malayshia’s body — bruised and battered, with a fractured rib and whiplike marks on her legs — was in the trunk.

Witnesses later told police that Williams had thrown Malayshia down stairs, beaten her with a phone cord, deprived her of food, and forced her to wear a heavy vest and walk up and down the stairs. Williams denied that, telling police that the vest was only calming, and that Malayshia might have fallen but was not pushed.

In the days since, City Council members have called for hearings, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has announced a systemwide review, and the district attorney’s office has charged Williams with murder.

But Malayshia’s relatives said they are still trying to understand how a failure this profound was possible.

Last weekend, more than 200 people gathered in Morris Park in Overbrook to release balloons in Malayshia’s memory.

Nafis Horne, her paternal uncle, said he would have gladly taken in his niece. But no officials ever reached out, he said.

He said his sister, Nyfisha Allford, had sought custody of the little girl but got nowhere, despite city and state policies prioritizing placements with relatives over foster care.

“My sister tried to get her,” Horne said, “but that fell through the cracks.”

Staff writers Ellie Rushing, Jillian Kramer, and Jesse Bunch contributed to this article.