Gunshot victim’s mom unleashes fury on ‘cowardly’ shooter in fiery courtroom testimony
In the moments after the man who tried to kill her son was convicted last week, Nikita Troupe stood before a Bibb County courtroom and spoke her mind.
Troupe’s son, Kibwe Steed, had been 22 on Halloween night in 2017 when an acquaintance of his shot Steed in the face and stomach in the breezeway of the south Macon apartment complex where Troupe and her family lived.
Last week, jurors found 28-year-old Horace Jamal “Urk” Marsh guilty of aggravated assault in Steed’s shooting. Marsh was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
But before the sentence was handed down, Troupe delivered what is known as a victim-impact statement. She told of an agonizing uneasiness that she and her family endured in the aftermath of the shooting, which Steed survived and is recovering from. He still suffers from hearing loss.
“I have waited four and a half years for this misery to be brought to an end. I’ve spent years looking (out) both sides (of my house) before I step out of my own door,” Troupe said to the courtroom and to Marsh, who sat handcuffed across the courtroom.
“For years since Oct. 31, 2017, we have lived trauma, pain, anger and fear over a cowardly decision. ... I’m so thankful you’re gonna pay for what you did.”
As she talked, she stood at a podium with a microphone on it, but her voice was so emphatic she didn’t need the help.
As she boomed, she recalled how she was 16 when she gave birth to Steed. She said she was in labor for 30 hours.
“Thirty hours!” Troupe yelled at Marsh. “For you to attempt to come take him from me in a matter of seconds! Over nothing.”
Testimony at Marsh’s three-day trial suggested it was possible Marsh shot Steed over a PlayStation 4 gaming system that Steed, in court, admitted having taken from Marsh.
As Troupe went on, she spoke of her son’s miraculous survival, and of his name, Kibwe, and its Swahili origin.
“It means blessed!” she said, glancing at Marsh across the room. “Doctors told me he had a 50-50 chance of surviving that night because of your coward behind. But as you have seen since then, on the streets, you have seen him ... like you saw a ghost.”
Steed himself had addressed the court earlier and said he forgave Marsh, but Troupe said she could not.
“I promise you,” Troupe said, “I won’t ever forgive you. Because Oct. 31 for me will always be — forgive me — hell. Pure hell.”
She told Marsh, her voice rising still, “Your family will never know what it’s like to pull their child in the house bleeding, begging not to die. I cleaned my son’s blood up that night because of you! Me and my brother, not the city of Bibb County! I got that blood up! I cried and scrubbed every piece of blood up!”
She said that to this day she keeps in her wallet a dollar bill stained with her son’s blood from the night he was shot.
Booming still, Troupe said her son now celebrates two birthdays.
“The day I gave birth to him and the day you tried to take him from me!” she said. “Because unlike you, he got a second chance.”
Marsh, she thundered, had “failed ... miserably” when he tried to kill Steed.
She said she hoped that every day of his life Marsh remembers her and the name of her son.
“And what it means: blessed,” she said, turning to leave. “I feel sorry for your family and you.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 3:50 PM.