Morgan Freeman’s Granddaughter E’Dena Hines Was Murdered 2 Years Ago, Now Her Powerful Final Movie Is Ready

Morgan Freeman’s stepgranddaughter E’Dena Hines was murdered two years ago, but she’s about to rock the world with her appearance in a new powerful film, Landing Up.

E’Dena Hines, an aspiring actress and stepgranddaughter of Morgan Freeman, had her bright future cut short tragically in the summer of 2015 when she was stabbed to death in New York City.

In a statement to People magazine, the New York Police Department named her boyfriend, Lamar Davenport, as the alleged murderer of E’Dena Hines, who died at the age of 33. Actor and rapper Davenport was later charged with second-degree murder.

But E’Dena Hines is set to make her final, powerful appearance in a new film, Landing Up, which she wrapped filming just days prior to her tragic death.

Landing Up, scheduled for world premiere at the Dances with Films festival in Los Angeles on June 7, recently released the first exclusive trailer obtained by People.

Landing Up is grabbing the world’s attention not only because it features Morgan Freeman stepgranddaughter’s final performance but also because it touches upon an important yet rarely discussed issue: homelessness.

In Landing Up, which centers on two young homeless women, E’Dena Hines plays a homeless woman named Cece who joins her friend Chrissie to seduce men into giving them food and shelter.

While the seduction allows Cece (E’Dena Hines) and Chrissie (played by Landing Up’s screenwriter Stacey Maltin) to survive in the tough environment, the two young women do not give up their dreams to find a job, own a house, and get married.

The role of Cece spoke to E’Dena Hines, as Maltin tells People that the life of the homeless felt “personal” for the stepgranddaughter of Morgan Freeman because her boyfriend Davenport – who went on to cut her life short – “had some experience in homeless shelters.”

Maltin says that she saw E’Dena Hines just two days before her tragic death, adding that she’ll “never forget” refusing to let the budding actress see some footage from Landing Up.

“She came over to the studio asking to see some of the footage, but it wasn’t ready at that point.”

Maltin says she told E’Dena Hines she’d be able to see the footage in a few days as they had just finished shooting the film. But E’Dena Hines never got to see her work in the film, and Maltin says that “really hurt” because the stepgranddaughter of Morgan Freeman was “so great in it.”

The world will be able to see E’Dena Hines’s final work in Landing Up when the film premieres next week.

Watch Morgan Freeman’s Step-Granddaughter E’Dena Hines in Her Final Performance Before Her Murder https://t.co/eG482ED04G

— People (@people) June 1, 2017

The director of the film, Daniel Tenenbaum, admits that it feels like E’Dena Hines is still with them. Tenenbaum told People that every time they see Hines’s work in Landing Up or on the posters, “it’s just like she’s visiting us.”

E’Dena Hines will go down in the movie industry’s memory as an ambitious young actress who put in a lot of effort to bring into the limelight some of the most pressing issues of this decade: homelessness, unemployment, and the struggle to find a home.

33-year-old E’Dena Hines’ chest, according to George Hudacko, who witnessed the 3 a.m. (333) https://t.co/8gedGxeRoI

— ShawnP (@shawn5555p) January 29, 2017

E’Dena Hines’s public image, however, was somewhat plagued by reports from tabloids that she was having a romantic relationship with Morgan Freeman. Hines was the granddaughter of the actor’s first wife, Jeannette Adair Bradshaw, to whom he was married to from 1967 to 1979.

The fact that E’Dena Hines, who was born on March 4, 1982, and Morgan Freeman were not related by blood gave birth to speculation that the actor and his stepgranddaughter could be involved in a relationship.

In 2012, Morgan Freeman went public with criticism of the reports that claimed he had a romantic relationship with and even planned to get married to E’Dena Hines, according to TMZ.

[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]