Darris Brooks, a 25-year-old male from Chester, Pennsylvania, was killed by gunfire on September 7, 1990, in a sudden afternoon shooting on West 3rd Street. The available online memorial record places his death in Chester and identifies him as a victim of gun violence, while a newspaper clipping tied to the case gives the fuller scene of what happened that day.
Brooks was sitting in the 2500 block of West 3rd Street at about 5:30 p.m., playing checkers with a friend, when he was shot.
The ordinary setting made the violence especially stark: he was not described as being in a confrontation or fleeing danger, but simply passing time with someone he knew when the shooting occurred. His listed address was on the 2600 block of Nolan Street, only a short distance from where he died.
The investigation later focused on Howard Lee Byers, 20, of the 2500 block of West 3rd Street in Chester. According to the newspaper account, Byers was not first found by Chester police at the murder scene, but by Philadelphia police officers who were checking on what they considered suspicious behavior by two men in West Philadelphia the following Friday. After detaining him, the officers checked with the National Crime Information Center and learned that Byers was wanted by Chester detectives and the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division in connection with Brooks’s killing.
Byers was charged on a Saturday with homicide, weapons offenses, and related charges in the September 7 shooting death of Darris Brooks. He was arraigned in Chester Regional Court, held without bail, and sent to Delaware County Prison while awaiting a hearing scheduled for November 13. The online source material available for this synopsis does not provide a trial result, plea, acquittal, conviction, sentencing outcome, or any additional named suspects beyond Byers.
