By George K. Werner (former education minister)
Yesterday, as friends and family converged on JFK Memorial Hospital, the air in the courtyard carried a heaviness that words struggled to hold. After days of waiting, questioning, and replaying the horror of that morning, the police finally released the body of Matthew Mulbah—a son, a brother, a friend, a young Liberian whose only crime was struggling with his mind in a society that has not learned how to respond to mental illness with compassion.
When the attendants from Stryker Funeral Home placed Matthew’s body into the waiting hearse, something shifted. Grief, which had hovered like a shadow, suddenly took shape. It became real. Heads bowed. Hands trembled. Eyes that had fought back tears finally let them fall. Even the breeze seemed to hush itself, as if Liberia was finally acknowledging what had been taken from us.
I hadn’t planned to see Matthew. Some part of me felt unprepared for what that sight would do to my spirit. But standing there, I found myself asking the undertaker quietly, “How does he look? Are the bullet wounds still visible?” He was wrapped in black linen—the first time I had ever seen a body covered in black instead of white.
The cloth itself felt heavy, final, as though it understood the tragedy it held. Around us, the family’s wailing filled the air—raw, unfiltered grief that made the moment almost unbearable. Then, in that fragile space, a brief commotion erupted. A police officer, acting without discipline or empathy, grabbed a family woman’s phone because she was filming the hearse. The tension rose sharply—anger mixing with anguish—but swift intervention restored calm. Even in sorrow, dignity fought to hold its place.
It was almost 6 p.m., that hour when Monrovia’s traffic thickens and everyone is rushing home. As the hearse pulled away from JFK, cars instinctively slowed and gave way—not because they knew it was Matthew inside, but because Liberians still honor the silent passage of the dead. Most of the drivers had no idea whose body they were letting through, no sense of the tragedy wrapped in black linen behind the tinted glass. Yet the courtesy was there, unspoken and immediate.
We eased into line behind the hearse, and through the evening traffic—past strangers who did not know the story—we followed Matthew to Stryker. The short drive from JFK to Stryker felt much longer than it was. No one spoke. We didn’t need to. Our silence was its own anthem—a slow, painful procession of disbelief, anger, and love. It was as though the entire community had gathered to escort him, ensuring that Matthew did not take even this last earthly journey alone.
At Stryker, we stood together once more. We left Matthew there—not abandoned but entrusted—while decisions about his burial still hang in the air. Yet none of us truly left him. His story followed us home, sat with us through the night, and pressed itself into the corners of our thoughts.
Matthew is no longer just a young man who died; he has become a symbol of something Liberia must confront. By all accounts—friends, neighbors, relatives—he was experiencing a mental-health crisis, not a criminal episode. His family did what society tells us to do: they sought help. The state responded with bullets. How did things escalate so quickly? How did we become a nation where a cry for help is met with lethal force?
Matthew’s death exposes profound national failures: a broken mental-health system, a policing culture prone to fear and excessive force, weak accountability structures, and a society too accustomed to silence. In the days since the shooting, public debate has been fierce. Some defend the police.
Many demand accountability. But beneath all the arguments lies a simple truth: a young man called for help, and the system killed him. His mother’s trembling voice in interviews should echo in every hallway of power. The tears shed at JFK should stain every official statement that attempts to sanitize what happened. The silence in the convoy behind the hearse should haunt every policymaker who has postponed reform for “another day.” This is that day.
When I finally reached home, the weight of the evening settled heavily on me. I stepped back out for a walk around the neighborhood—this time alone, without Matthew. No tall shadow beside me. No quiet jokes. No reassuring presence of the strong, gentle bodyguard who had become the go-to person for everything.
The emptiness of that walk said more than words ever could. I returned home, poured a cold beer, and let it sit in my hand longer than usual. Then I went to bed—not out of tiredness, but because grief has a way of pulling your body downward when your spirit cannot stand anymore. In that moment, the loss became mine too.
And today, I am on my way to Marshall, a place Matthew and I visited countless times. We landscaped there together—clearing brush, planting palms, pressing flowers into the earth. Everywhere I walk, I know I will see traces of him: in the trees we planted, in the neat rows we shaped, in the gentle order he brought to the land. Marshall remembers him. And today, I need that memory.
I will walk along the shoreline, letting the ocean wind loosen the tightness in my chest. And when the moment feels right, I will step into the water and swim with the tides, allowing the sea to hold me in ways grief sometimes cannot. The tides have their own wisdom: they pull, they release, they return. In their rhythm, perhaps I will find a little steadiness again.
Matthew was more than the body wrapped in black linen, more than the headlines, more than the arguments now dividing public opinion. He was a young Liberian with people who loved him, with a life that should not have ended this way. The tribute he deserves is not only in our words but in the reforms we demand.
Matthew should not become another forgotten victim of state violence. He should become a turning point. Let his story lead us toward trained mental-health crisis responders, non-lethal de-escalation practices, true police accountability, and a Liberia where every life—especially the fragile ones—matters.
We followed Matthew home yesterday. Now Liberia must follow his legacy forward—into a future where no family walks this road again.
