‘Why would you take someone’s life for no reason?’ Family, friends mourn men killed in Miami
Marshall Ragsdale spent his days toiling and his nights sleeping on the streets of South Florida, never allowing his situation to dampen his mood nor halt his acts of kindness. Kinard Shirley was an independent soul, spending a day with his mother on his birthday and rising in the predawn hours to land a construction job.
Last week, their lives tragically intersected as Shirley prepared for a long day of construction work — and Ragsdale slept in one of the few safe areas for homeless men and women in a rapidly expanding and hostile Miami.
A New York man is accused of beating the two men to death, and attacking two others, one of whom is still in critical care. Family members and friends of the two men are angry and upset, reeling from the loss of a son, brother and best friend.
Around 5:45 a.m. Jan. 16, at the cusp of the morning rush hour, Brenton Clarke, 36, started attacking people sleeping on the sidewalk near North Miami Avenue and Northwest Sixth Street, not that far from the new Miami Central train station and the gentrifying neighborhood around it. Clarke, armed with a metal rod, assaulted and killed Shirley, 37, and Ragsdale, 66, and seriously injured a man and a woman sleeping together, Miami police say. He was arrested shortly after, his bloodstained clothes and surveillance footage as evidence.
Police identified the murdered men Wednesday. And while the names of those injured have not been released, at least one person has been released from the hospital while the other remains in critical condition, said Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust.
Little is known about the alleged killer; police have yet to say what motivated Clarke. Book said Clarke had only been in Miami about a week before the attacks. He gave police an address in Inwood, New York, part of Long Island’s Five Towns area.
READ MORE: 2 dead, 2 hurt in what police are describing as an attack on homeless people in Miami
‘Give you the shirt off his back’
Eddie Fisher has spent more than 10 years living on the streets of Miami. Two things have made that time bearable: his art and his best friend Marshall Ragsdale.
With a thousand-yard stare and shaky words, Fisher recalled watching his best friend get beaten to death and his sister-in-law beaten within an inch of her life.
“He [Clarke] came out of nowhere,” said Fisher on Thursday evening, a week after the attack, sitting on the steps of an abandoned building just a few feet away from where the murders happened. “He hit him [Ragsdale] once, twice, three times in the back of the head.”
He could not believe how someone could so viciously attack a good man. He said Ragsdale was a laborer who dutifully made money so he and others could survive.
“He would give you the shirt off his back,” he said. “He would buy food and drinks for me because I couldn’t work.”
Fisher saw many things while surviving the streets, which inspired his art pieces, which he is now trying to sell to visit his sister-in-law in the hospital. He stared ruefully at his artwork, eyes tearing, as he remembered his dear friend, small works crafted with crayons and colored pencils on cardboard.
Steven, who has been homeless for over a decade and took shelter with Fisher near the street corner, knew of Ragsdale. He said he’d work in the city and, like many others, came to the area to sleep at night.
The area has become safer as more construction has moved in, he said. The drug dealing and fights of the past have settled down. But the brazen attack on four people sleeping last Thursday morning unnerved him.
“People like to fight, but I’ve never seen something like that,” said Steven, who did not give his last name.
With nearby churches no longer serving food and the city pushing out the homeless, Steven said he is concerned about what that means for his life on the street after the attacks. “The bad will continue, but there are still good things in this world,” he said.
Reserved, caring and joyous
Shirley worked in construction on a work site near the street corner where he was murdered, Cornelius Burnett, his brother, told the Herald.
That morning, he woke up early, per usual, to arrive at the site early so he could secure work, as there were only limited spots on the construction crew, Burnett said.
Charlotte Burnett, his mother, was at work when she got a call from the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“I was devastated,” she said. “I dropped the phone. I couldn’t believe it.”
She last saw him for his birthday on Dec. 20 — the pair had a close relationship, and he used to live with her until his late 20s.
On his 37th birthday, he visited his mother at her work at Bayshore Veterinary Clinic in North Miami Beach.
“He came to my job. We went out to eat and we just talked, and then, you know, just spent time together.” She described him as doing well and in good spirits that day.
She said she was supposed to see him on New Year’s Day but that he never came.
Shirley grew up in Perrine and loved to fish and play football. Though quiet, his mother said he was always laughing and telling jokes. He’s a graduate of Miami Palmetto High.
His sister, Simone Shirley, remembered him as a reserved but loving soul. She last saw him at their father’s funeral in December 2022 in Jacksonville.
They lived most of their lives apart — Simone grew up in Jacksonville; Shirley lived in Miami. They had the same father but different mothers. Despite the distance, the siblings forged a bond during childhood summers spent in Jacksonville and the few years he lived there.
In their summers, Shirley took on the role of a protective older brother, often tasked by their father to keep an eye on his younger sisters, whether it was at the pool or during other activities, Simone said.
He was the eldest of 13 siblings on his father’s side. He and Simone often laughed about their father’s loud snoring.
His family, including his sisters Simone and Felisha, remember begging him at their father’s funeral to move to Jacksonville to be closer to them. He said he had to take care of things in Miami before he could move up north.
Simone, a hair stylist, was at a Tesla dealership getting her tires checked when the devastating text arrived: Her brother had been killed.
“Why would you do something senseless?” Simone said. “Why would you take someone’s life for no reason?”
His family said they were unaware of the full extent of any struggles he may have had.
“He was very independent and never wanted to be a burden on anyone. He was the kind of person who would do anything you asked and was always there for his family,” Felisha said.
They can’t understand why Clarke, who is in a Miami-Dade jail cell on first-degree murder and attempted murder charges, did what he did that morning to their brother, his mother’s son.
“He messed up a lot of people’s lives; he messed up my life. It is like taking a bone away from me,” said Shirley’s mother. “He didn’t bother nobody. He always smiles, laughs, is a very fun acting person, always laughs, joking around.”
Shirley’s family has created a KinardGoingAwayCelebration page on *spotfund. To donate, go to https://www.spotfund.com/story/39df3032-df2c-4fbc-9592-1500e63583e4?SFID=KinardGoingAwayCelebration
Miami Herald reporter David Goodhue contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
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