In the summer of 2013, a young woman's life was tragically cut short in an act of senseless violence on the East Side of Buffalo, New York. On the evening of June 24th, 20-year-old Diamond Toler, a female, was sitting in the backseat of a parked vehicle at the corner of Stevens Avenue and East Ferry Street. What should have been an ordinary moment turned into a scene of horror when a man unleashed a barrage of bullets into the car.
One of those bullets found its way to Diamond, striking her in the heart and ending her life. She was not the intended target of the attack.
The man who was the focus of the shooter's rage was also hit, struck in the chest, but he would go on to recover from his injuries. For Diamond, however, there was no recovery. She was an innocent bystander caught in a conflict that was not her own. The immediate aftermath of the shooting left a community in shock and a family grappling with an unbearable loss. The Buffalo Police Homicide Squad, including Detectives Antonio Borrelli and Salvatore Valvo, immediately began the arduous task of piecing together the evidence to find the person responsible for Diamond's death.
Their investigation eventually led them to a man named Leron Bailey. At the time of his indictment, Bailey was already serving a five-year prison sentence for an unrelated weapons charge. In July 2017, the Erie County District Attorney's Office announced that a grand jury had indicted the then 35-year-old Bailey on charges of Murder in the Second Degree, Attempted Murder in the Second Degree, and two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree. The wheels of justice, though they may have seemed to turn slowly for Diamond's loved ones, were now firmly in motion.
In January 2018, nearly five years after Diamond Toler's life was stolen, a jury found Leron Bailey guilty on all counts. The trial, prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Eugene T. Partridge III and Louis C. Mussari, brought to light the callousness of Bailey's actions and the devastating consequences for an innocent young woman. Subsequently, State Supreme Court Justice Christopher Burns sentenced Bailey to a term of 65 years to life in prison, ensuring that the man responsible for the death of Diamond Toler would be held accountable for his actions for the remainder of his days.
