said<\/a> Jackson-Small was her boyfriend at the time.<\/p>\n\u201cIt is with a tragic and heavy heart that we share the loss of my niece, Imani Dia Smith, who was senselessly killed by her boyfriend on the morning of Sunday, December 21st, just ahead of Christmas,\u201d reads a GoFundMe set up by Smith\u2019s family. The campaign has raised more than $67,500 as of Dec. 26.<\/p>\n
Jackson-Small was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and fourth-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, according to the statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cImani had her whole life ahead of her,\u201d Smith\u2019s GoFundMe reads. \u201cShe was a vivacious, loving and fiercely talented person. A true triple-threat performer, she most notably played the role of Young Nala on Broadway in Disney\u2019s Lion King \u2014 an experience that reflected the joy, creativity, and light she put into the world.”<\/p>\n
Smith leaves behind a 3-year-old son. <\/p>\n
The Edison Police Department is encouraging anyone with information about Smith\u2019s death to call them at 732-718-8064 or the Middlesex County Prosecutor\u2019s Office at 732-745-8083.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Broadway actress Imani Dia Smith has died at the age of 25. Smith, who starred in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[182601,88108,182600,88,1583,65427],"class_list":["post-372453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cop-car","tag-cruiser","tag-emergency-lights","tag-entertainment","tag-police","tag-sirens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}