Qwamane Williams, a 16-year-old Black male, was shot on the night of June 18, 2008, on St. James Street in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. Police were called just after 10:25 p.m. to 46 St. James Street, where they found him suffering from a gunshot wound; he was taken to Boston Medical Center and later pronounced dead. News photos taken the next day described the scene outside his home on St. James Street and noted his death as one of the city’s early-summer homicides that year.
In the days that followed, the Boston Police Department publicly identified him and confirmed he was a Dorchester resident who was killed in Roxbury. The department appealed for the community’s help, a familiar refrain during a period when youth violence was again drawing scrutiny in the city.
Years later, Williams’s case remains listed by the Boston Police Department among the city’s unsolved 2008 homicides, and authorities have not announced any arrests or publicly named suspects. The unsolved-homicides page records his case under the date and location of the shooting and reiterates that it was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner.
