The child's father is questioning how the Department of Public Safety could have let this happen.
"We don't have any added feelings about Mr. Alston, we're just displeased with the (Department of Public Safety) and their efforts to keep him in custody, or lack thereof. We wish Mr. Alston and his family nothing but peace, blessings, and prosperity," Maleah's father Shaquille Williams said in a statement Tuesday.
Williams added that the thing that bothered him was that "somehow, he got out of his leg shackles."
Maleah Williams
On Christmas Day in 2015, children in a Chapel Hill neighborhood were doing what most kids do, playing with their toys. It was a warm holiday for most of central North Carolina which presented an opportunity for them to play outside.
Maleah Williams was one of those children. Although she was only one year old, Maleah's mom was outside with her. She was holding her daughter as they watched the children play on what should have been a day of celebration, that suddenly turned tragic.
Gunshots were fired into an area where the children were playing outside at Trinity Court Apartments. Maleah was hit by a bullet while in her mother's lap. Tylena Williams told ABC11 in 2015 that everyone started running and then she realized her daughter was bleeding.
Willams said under the watch of several adults, about ten children were running around, playing with their new Christmas toys. Williams said she was holding Maleah when she saw a car drive through the parking lot, then back up a hill before stopping near a set of dumpsters. She said a man inside the car started spraying bullets into the yard down below.
"And he just started shooting and I started running," Williams said. "I felt my body being so warm and my baby was just bleeding so much and gasping for air, and I kept telling her I love her- please don't leave me."
Ms. Williams later told ABC11 that Maleah had been shot in the head. Maleah whose nickname was 'Peanut' died on December 27, 2015, two days after she was shot.
Three men were arrested and charged in the case just a few days after the shooting. Charges were dropped against one of the suspects in February 2016.
Four years after Maleah's death, in January 2019, the suspects pleaded guilty. Pierre Je Bron Moore was sentenced to 24-34 years in prison. Ramone Jamarr Alston was sentenced to life.