This story is part of The Dallas Morning News’ homicide project focused on sharing the stories of all people killed in Dallas in 2024.
Ja’Marcus Deshaun Smith wanted a car. The 16-year-old was saving up to fix his dad’s old Escalade SUV. If he could get the transmission replaced, it was his. He used to ask neighbors if he could take out their trash for a few bucks.
“The day he got killed he had about — well … murdered — he had about three or $400 in his pocket,” said Howard Sanders, Ja’Marcus’ grandfather.
The teenager was shot in front of his family’s apartment in South Dallas on Feb. 16. Another 16-year-old was arrested. His name has not been released because of his age.
Sanders said the rumor is that the two teenagers had an argument over the lyrics in a rap song Ja’Marcus had written. Ja’Marcus’ 15-year-old girlfriend was shot in the leg and survived, Sanders said.
Howard and Carolyn Sanders are in their 60s. Everyone calls them Papa and Granny — that’s even what they call each other. Howard Sanders remembers someone once asked Ja’Marcus what his grandfather’s real name was, and he had no clue. The only thing he’d ever called him was Papa.
They had raised Ja’Marcus since he was 7, along with his brothers, who are now 11 and 12, and sister Brandlyn, 20. Howard Sanders has Parkinson’s disease, and Ja’Marcus helped him around the house.
Brandlyn was the only sibling home when Ja’Marcus died. She called 911. While she still lives in the apartment, the two boys are having a hard time coming back.
“They’re scared to even be here,” Carolyn Sanders said. The younger one wants the door locked and starts to shake when he visits.
Even so, the grandkids brought balloons and a frame of photos to the apartment for Howard Sanders on Father’s Day.
Ja’Marcus’ old bedroom is small. Most of his things are packed away in boxes, pushed to the side, lining the walls. The grandparents have put a photo of Ja’Marcus on the wall, with angel wings added.
Ja’Marcus loved painting his own designs on shoes and composing rap songs with his friends. He’d have them over and serve them food. He’d cook up nachos, pour glasses of Minute Maid lemonade, make snow cones, cook Cajun-style boudin balls and heat up cans of Ro-Tel tomatoes and chiles. He’d take plates to homeless people at the car wash near the apartment.
“He didn’t meet no strangers,” Howard Sanders said.
He is used to weapons. He served in the Army for more than 10 years, but wouldn’t allow a gun in his house. Ja’Marcus had been threatened by a gun before, when he was 15, and had wanted one to protect himself.
“Ja’Marcus, a gun can’t protect you,” Sanders told him. “You have to protect yourself. … Once you pull that trigger, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Since February, Sanders has walked by the bullet holes where his grandson died every day. They’re peppered on the wall leading to the apartment door, a constant reminder of the day Ja’Marcus was killed.
“He took his last breath in my arms,” he said.
When he leaves the apartment, he sometimes walks the other way now, to avoid the spot in the breezeway where it happened.
“It just hurts to come out here,” Sanders said. “Sometimes you can just see the picture of him just laying there. I wish I could block it off.”
