NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – This time of year seven years ago, Lillian Bond was already making plans for Easter Dinner. Typically, she’d prepare extra servings, just in case nieces, nephews, cousins of all kinds and folks in the Ingleside community of Norfolk decide to stop by for a plate.
Bond, 59, was a veteran employee at CHKD, but her passion was taking care of anyone – a woman who has been abused, a teenager who needs help their homework or a single mom – who needs help.
On the morning of April 19, 2016, Bond was taking out the trash when a car drove by, opened fire and killed the woman who welcomed all, without judgment, including a nephew who remains unnamed.
10 On Your Side interviewed the victim’s niece on the day Bond was killed. Tiese Bright now lives in Malta, where she closely follows the headlines from Hampton Roads.
“I’m glad that justice has been served,” Bright said, “but there’s still so much healing that has to happen, but it won’t happen in the time that they [the defendants] are away.”
Seven years later, we know who did it, how they did it, and why.
The US Attorney’s office announced this week that four Greensboro North Carolina men have been convicted for the brazen shooting death of Bond.
“This day has been a long time coming, especially for the family of Lillian Bond,” U.S. Attorney Jessica Aber said in a statement. “This drug enterprise took the life of an innocent person, a woman well-known to be kind and compassionate to her friends and family.”
According to testimony and evidence, a gang led by Jaquate Simpson was angry that a Norfolk contact failed to pay for a package of cocaine. Simpson hired Kalub Shipman – who brought in Nelson Evans as an assistant – to kill the first person to exit Bond’s home. The unnamed nephew who owed Simpson $81,000 was known to visit Bond’s home.
From her home in Malta, the victim’s niece weighed how the murder has fractured her family and the void left behind.
“So, it wasn’t just our family who lost her; the entire community lost her,” Bright said.
The headlines from home tell the story of layers of dysfunction that have devastated families and entire communities. The defendants involved in the death of Bond and the associated drug conspiracy face mandatory life sentences.
“We need all walks of life to wrap around our children,” Bright said, “so that they understand there is more to life than drugs and gangs and violence.”
