Meshach Brighty, 21, a Black/African American male, was killed late on August 4, 2015, in Philadelphia's Wynnefield section. The earliest scene reporting described a sudden burst of gunfire just before midnight along the 5300 block of West Berks Street, where residents called 911 after hearing shots. When officers arrived, they found him collapsed on the sidewalk after being shot in the head at close range while riding a bicycle.
Police said he was still on the bike when he fell.
Witnesses told investigators that after the shooting, the gunman got into a dark blue or black sedan where two other men were waiting. The car reportedly fled south on Georges Lane from Berks Street. At first, police were still working to identify the victim and looking for surveillance video that might help explain who had targeted him and why. The killing appeared direct and close-range, leaving investigators with a narrow scene, a fleeing vehicle, and witness accounts of more than one person connected to the escape.
Within weeks, Philadelphia homicide detectives made an arrest. On August 20, 2015, police arrested Kyree Darrisaw of the 5300 block of Euclid Street. News reports said Darrisaw was accused not only in Brighty's killing, but also in the May 10, 2015 killing of Basil Amir Anderson, who had been found unconscious with a gunshot wound to the back of the head on the 5300 block of Hazelhurst Street and later died at Presbyterian Hospital. Police said the two victims lived only a few blocks apart.
Darrisaw was charged with two counts of murder, violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, and related offenses. Some online reports spelled the victim's name as Meshach or Mesach Brightly and one arrest report placed the death scene on the 2400 block of North 54th Street, while the contemporaneous scene report and later homicide-arrest coverage described the fatal shooting around the 5300 block of Berks Street. The available online reporting does not clearly explain a motive, identify the two men said to be in the getaway car, or state whether anyone besides Darrisaw was charged in Brighty's death.
Later federal docket records show Kyree Hasan Darrisaw pursued habeas corpus litigation against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2024, but the publicly accessible online materials reviewed did not provide a clear final disposition specifically for Brighty's homicide case. The online record that is readily available establishes the fatal shooting, the witness description of the gunman fleeing in a sedan with two other men, and Darrisaw's arrest and murder charges tied to Brighty's death and a second Philadelphia homicide.
