Family remembers Isya Stanley, 17-year-old Freire Charter grad killed in Fairmount Park

Regina Jones Stanley had been planning for weeks to host a big graduation party for her daughter, Isya, who finished her senior year at Freire Charter School in early June. Within days, she found herself planning a funeral, instead.

A week that started with joy ended in tragedy when the 17-year-old was shot and killed at a party she was attending with her boyfriend in Fairmount Park. Four other teens — an 18-year-old girl, a 14-year-old boy, and two 15-year-old boys — were shot and wounded that night in a barrage of gunfire that interrupted a large outdoor gathering on June 14.

Police said a crowd of about 100 juveniles was gathered in the park along Greenland Avenue near 33rd Street and Ridge Avenue when the shots rang out about 10:50 p.m.

Stanley, who was shot in the chest and shoulder, was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital about 20 minutes later.

The motive for the crime was unclear, police said, and no arrests have been made. The investigation is continuing.

Stanley was the ninth person under 18 to be killed by gunfire in Philadelphia this year, among 110 people who have lost their lives to bullets so far in 2024, according to data from the city controller’s office. And even as homicides have dropped almost 40% across the city, the toll of the losses is profound.

“That was my girl, she was my world. ... That’s my baby and I love her dearly,” Jones Stanley said.

She remembered the graduation party her family had held for the teen only a day earlier, after they packed 16 people into the front two rows of the Dell Music Center to celebrate her graduation. Stanley practically danced across the stage, her mother said, with her signature red hair framing a beaming smile.

Afterward, they hosted loved ones in their Cobbs Creek home, where a photographer recorded messages from friends and family congratulating Stanley and wishing her well in college — a dream that was not to be.

Now, Stanley’s parents are hoping that police will find and arrest the person who killed her.

“I got to get justice for my baby girl. Have to,” said Stanley’s father, I-Self. “I’m not going to sleep well until I do. That’s my only daughter, and I’m heartbroken.”

At the Stanleys’ house on a recent day, grief was mixed with the remnants of the graduation celebration. A congratulatory banner hung next to the front steps. Inside, dozens of photos chronicling her too-short life lined the counter, and her high school diploma was prominently displayed on the mantle.

Stanley’s parents recalled their daughter as outgoing, friendly, and precocious. She launched her own clothing line, Medallion Apparel, at 14, after teaching herself graphic design. She planned to attend Morgan State University in Baltimore, where she hoped to study business and entrepreneurship.

Her gregarious personality would have been a credit to that work, her parents said. Stanley thrived around others. She was “the life of the party,” said Demetria Wright, her academic adviser at Freire, an assessment her mother echoed.

At Freire, Stanley was a founding member of the dance team, where she helped teach younger kids, made dance TikToks, and took center stage on the dance floor at their prom.

She hadn’t always been so outgoing, her mother said, and as a child was quite shy. Jones Stanley credited the years Stanley spent learning to box at James Shuler Memorial Gym, where she learned self-defense, for making her the confident teenager she had become.

For Wright, the moment that captured Stanley’s personality was in April, when the school brought in World Cafe Live, the West Philly music venue, to run a music education workshop. When they asked for volunteers to help make a beat and rap over it, Stanley’s hand shot up in the air.

She dove into composing the beat, fingers dancing over the keyboard as she leaned in to focus and her classmates danced behind her. When it came time to perform, Stanley danced and rapped as she bounced around the classroom in her camo pants and furry black boots, a wide smile on her face.

“That’s my favorite memory of her because she’s just so into it. She got everybody else into it,” said Wright, who started filming as soon as Stanley hit the keyboard. “It was really a fun moment, and I’m so grateful that I was able to capture that.”

Staff writer Rodrigo Torrejón contributed to this article.