Malcolm X

Malcolm X, 39, was shot and killed while delivering a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan on February 21, 1965. Talmadge Hayer (also known as Mujahid Abdul Halim) was caught at the scene and confessed to being one of the shooters; he, along with Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, were convicted of murder in 1966. Aziz and Islam always maintained their innocence, and in November 2021 a joint reinvestigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's office and the men's attorneys resulted in both convictions being vacated, citing withheld exculpatory evidence. Hayer had named four other men as participants in a 1978 affidavit, but that information was never used to reopen the case at the time, and no one beyond Hayer has ever been properly convicted of the killing.

New York, NY · New York County County

• 1965: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The shooting and Hayer's capture and confession at the scene, per contemporaneous 1965 police and trial records.
• Aziz, Islam, and Hayer were convicted of murder in 1966.
• In a 1977–78 affidavit, Hayer stated that Aziz and Islam were not involved and separately named four other men he said helped plan and carry out the killing; a judge at the time declined to reopen the case on that basis, per the Innocence Project.
• In November 2021, the Manhattan DA's office moved to vacate Aziz's and Islam's convictions after a reinvestigation found the FBI and NYPD had withheld evidence likely to have changed the trial's outcome; both men were exonerated, Islam posthumously.
• New York City and State later paid Aziz and Islam's estate a combined $36 million in settlements over the wrongful convictions.

• The identities of the men Hayer named in his 1978 affidavit beyond Hayer himself have never resulted in any prosecution.
• Whether or how federal and city law enforcement's own conduct around the investigation — including withheld evidence cited in the 2021 reinvestigation — affected the outcome has not been fully accounted for publicly.
• No one beyond Hayer has ever been properly convicted and had that conviction stand for the killing.

• NPR — “The men exonerated in the Malcolm X killing will receive $36 million” (2022)
• Innocence Project, via WilmerHale — “Justice Overdue: Reinvestigating the Murder of Malcolm X”
• NBC News — “Two men convicted [in the] killing of Malcolm X expected [to be] exonerated” (2021)
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs