Darryl Lane, a 34-year-old male from Chester, Pennsylvania, was killed on February 17, 1999, in a shooting that unfolded in the 2400 block of Madison Street. The available online reporting describes the violence as coming suddenly in the middle of a winter afternoon, after an argument outside a home. Lane had walked up the steps toward the residence when the confrontation turned deadly.
Police said David Bentley, a 20-year-old Chester man who lived in the 400 block of West 24th Street,
was standing in the doorway of the home when he pulled out an unlicensed gun. According to the reported arrest affidavit, Bentley fired at least four shots at Lane around 4 p.m. The bullets struck Lane in the torso and face. After being hit, Lane clutched his chest and fell from the steps into the front yard.
Paramedics arrived within minutes, but Lane was pronounced dead shortly after they got there. The reporting portrays the shooting as a fatal escalation of an argument rather than a random attack, with police identifying Bentley as the person who fired the shots.
Bentley fled the scene after the shooting, but police said he later turned himself in that night. By the next morning, he had been charged with murder and arraigned before District Justice Kenneth Miller. The available online sources identify Bentley as the arrested suspect and charged defendant, but they do not provide a clear public outcome showing whether the case later ended in a plea, trial, conviction, acquittal, dismissal, or sentencing.
