Souleymane Magassouba was stepping out a store he spotted someone who would change his life.
Shay Johnson got off the train, on her way to pick up her son from daycare, and bumped into him. He stopped her, but she waved him off, not interested at first. It wasn’t until she came back with her son and saw him still standing there that she gave him a second thought.
“You’re still here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I waited for you.”
That kind of persistence stuck with her. He took her to The Cheesecake Factory, where he offered to share his food like always. That was who he was. Whether it was a plate of food, a ride somewhere, or the last dollar in his pocket, Souleymane gave what he had.
They eventually had a daughter in 2023, a baby girl named Fatoumata, after his mother.
“You know it’s not typical to find people who like to share,” Shay said. “I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing but they all eat together out of one big plate.”
Shay was referring to the fact that Souleymane came to the U.S. from Guinea in 2013 in search of better opportunities. He settled in West Philadelphia, working as a parking garage attendant at the Hopkinson House in Washington Square.
For five years, de didn’t just show up—he became part of the fabric of that place. He was reliable, kind, and always willing to help. His coworkers hung a picture of him in the garage.
“He used to always want to help them all,” Paul Miles, the parking garage manager, told 6ABC. “A lot of them was coming down crying to me when they found out about what happened to him.”
“It’s not been the same. It hasn’t been the same. Nothing like the same,” Miles said.
Souleymane was stabbed just before sunrise around 5:30 a.m. at an Exxon gas station on the 200 block of North 63rd Street in West Philadelphia. He was 31.
He worked different shifts Monday to Friday, sometimes waking up before dawn, and other times getting home after midnight. Weekends were for family, for parties, and for living life the fullest.
“If there was a party, he was there,” Shay said.
He also loved soccer—following his team from back home, playing in the park with friends, and gaming on PlayStation.
Much of his family was still back in Guinea, and he sent money home regularly. His older brother came the U.S. first, and he had close cousins that he thought of as sisters in Philly. But his younger siblings had just come to the U.S. shortly before he died.
Souleymane was proud of his heritage, making sure to speak to Fatoumata in both French and the local language Mandingo. At one point, he hoped to go back to live in Guinea, but he never got the chance.
Besides his daughter, he and Shay had a son, though he died in 2022. Fatoumata was born soon after, and she became the light of his life.
“He was sweet,” Shay said. “He’d give you the shirt off his back. If you needed a ride, he was there. If you needed money, he gave you whatever he had.”
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