‘A piece of him’: Man slain in Lake Highlands leaves behind 1-year-old daughter

By Julia James and Jamie Landers
https://www.dallasnews.com/

The Dallas Morning News is telling the stories of people killed in homicides in 2024 to better show the toll of violent crime in Dallas. Reporting throughout the year will probe what officials are doing to address a crime that claimed at least 246 lives last year.

Richard Pinkney had been talking about having children of his own since he was a child himself.

At first, the dream was to have three, then four, then six.

Pinkney, the middle child of five siblings, valued family above all else, relatives told The Dallas Morning News. He helped his grandmother when she was short on rent. He was “the glue” that held his two sisters and two brothers together. He showered his nieces and nephews in both love and gifts. He was his mother’s “pride and joy,” his sister Diamond Davis said.

In December 2022, Pinkney had his first child — a baby girl named Royalty — who Davis said looks and acts just like him.

“That was just so beautiful, to see him finally have his own daughter,” Davis, 31, said. “It’s just a blessing to still have a piece of him.”

Pinkney, 29, was found fatally shot on Jan. 3 about 2:30 p.m. in the 8800 block of Arbor Park Drive, just northwest of the intersection of Royal Lane and Skillman Street. He’s one of at least 43 people slain in the city this year.

Davis said she found out about the shooting through a flurry of calls and messages from Pinkney’s friends on Facebook and Instagram, telling her to go to police headquarters.

“My heart just kinda sank,” she said.

Davis tried to get a hold of a detective over the phone to no avail. When she finally arrived at the station, she was told her brother had died on the way to the hospital.

“What happened to my brother is very unfair,” Davis said. “Whatever he did does not amount to him being shot in the side of his head. My brother is not a killer, my brother doesn’t carry a gun, he’s never used a gun.

“I want justice for my brother, everybody wants justice for my brother.”

As of Tuesday, no arrests have been made in the case. Dallas police declined to provide any details about the ongoing investigation.

‘10 more minutes’

Davis said she and Pinkney were raised in Pleasant Grove but moved to North Dallas when they were teenagers. Pinkney was popular, Davis recalled, and had a large group of friends.

“To me, all I can see him as is my little brother who grew up looking goofy,” she said.

Davis said she and Pinkney attended North Texas Job Corps, where she studied accounting and he studied nursing.

Within their family, Davis said Pinkney was known to be their mother’s “pride and joy,” adding she had “no problem admitting” Pinkney was her favorite child.

“This has been really devastating for her,” Davis said.

When the siblings fought amongst themselves, Davis recalled, their punishment was to hug one other for at least 10 minutes. While she said she didn’t argue with Pinkney often, Davis said she has found herself yearning for one more disagreement.

“I just wish I could get into it with him one more time so that I could hug him for 10 more minutes,” Davis said.

‘Gone from the world’

Level-headed, stylish and always cracking jokes. That’s how Pinkney’s family wants him to be remembered.

Pinkney’s grandmother, Ameenah Numan, said one of her favorite memories of Pinkney is from her 69th birthday party, when he spent the entire night playing dominoes with her, then Uno with her great-grandchildren at her feet.

“His nieces and nephews, they adored him because their Uncle Richard, they knew he was going to be there,” Numan, now 70, said. “Their birthdays, their Christmas, their graduation, their Uncle Richard was going to be there.”

Davis shared similar memories and said Pinkney stayed up with her children playing games past midnight on New Year’s Day.

“He was playing Uno with them up until he left my house,” she said. “That’s the last moment they had with him.”

Pinkney’s family also noted his love of fashion, particularly shoes. When they went to collect some of his belongings after the slaying, Numan said, three of the walls in one room were covered floor to ceiling in shoes.

Davis said all five siblings wear the same shoe size, giving them all another “piece of Richie” through his shoe collection. In the weeks since his death, she said she has found herself asking “What would my brother wear?” when putting together an outfit.

Numan said she can feel Pinkney and his magnetic personality “gone from the world.”

“It’s going to be difficult for my family to learn to live with something like this,” Davis said. “I don’t think this is something we’ll ever get over.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective John Valdez at 214-671-3623 or john.valdez@dallaspolice.gov and refer to case No. 001454-2024.

This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.