Aaliyah Wright, a newborn African-American female, lived for only six days, but her brief life was the tragic postscript to the murder of her mother. That life began on September 14, 2009, after her mother, 15-year-old Tiffany Rena Wright, was found shot in the head on a street in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tiffany, who was eight months pregnant, was rushed to a hospital where doctors delivered Aaliyah. Tiffany died shortly after arrival, and Aaliyah passed away six days later on September 20, 2009.
Tiffany Wright was a junior at Hawthorne High School, which had a special program for pregnant teens. Her grandmother, Shirley Boston, who lived in Buffalo, New York, remembered her as a shy and pleasant girl. Teachers at her school adored her, calling her smart and capable of all her work. One teacher recalled that despite the "terrible stuff" she was dealing with in her life, she remained focused.
Originally from Buffalo, Tiffany had been placed in foster care and eventually ended up in Charlotte. After her adoptive mother died in January 2009, she briefly lived with her adoptive brother, Royce Anthony Mitchell, and his wife before being moved to another foster home.
The morning of the shooting was dark and early. Shortly before 6 a.m. on that Monday, Tiffany was waiting for the school bus on Mallard Creek Road in north Charlotte. Her foster mother had walked her to the bus stop and returned home. After hearing at least three gunshots, the foster mother ran back outside and found Tiffany lying wounded in the street. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers responded to the scene, and the gravely injured teenager was transported to CMC Main hospital, but her life could not be saved.
The investigation into the double homicide would stretch on for nearly a decade, leaving Tiffany's family waiting and wondering. From the beginning, investigators with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department had a person of interest on their radar: Tiffany's 36-year-old adoptive brother, Royce Anthony Mitchell. Shortly after the murder, Mitchell was charged with statutory rape in connection with Tiffany. However, those charges were dropped when a DNA test proved he was not the father of her baby, Aaliyah. Despite this, a federal judge later revoked Mitchell's probation on a prior drug conviction, ruling that he had likely had a sexual relationship with the teenager and sending him to prison for 30 months.
For years, Tiffany's grandmother expressed her frustration, feeling that police weren't pursuing the case aggressively enough. "I just don't know why we have no answers of why is this such a whodunit," she said in 2011. Police maintained that the case was active and that they were pursuing all leads. The breakthrough the family had been waiting for finally came in September 2018, nine years after the murders.
On September 7, 2018, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced they had made an arrest. Acting on a new tip from the community, they charged Royce Anthony Mitchell, then 45, with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Tiffany and Aaliyah Wright. The news brought a sense of long-awaited relief to Tiffany's family. Her grandmother, Shirley Boston, expressed her gratitude that an arrest had finally been made. "So happy, so glad things are finally coming to an end," she said. "For him, to know he did not get away with that." As of September 2018, Mitchell was in custody and awaiting his court appearance. Anyone with information about the case was asked to call Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.
