On a winter morning in Concord, New Hampshire, the life of Terrence Wigglesworth, a 28-year-old Black / African American male, came to a tragic end. On January 16, 2021, at approximately 11:46 a.m., police responded to a disturbance at the Firehouse Block Apartments on Warren Street. Inside a fourth-floor apartment, they found Wigglesworth with a single gunshot wound to the chest.
Despite emergency medical treatment, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation that followed pieced together the events of that morning. The shooter was identified as Tyler Cochran, a 33-year-old resident of the apartment where the incident occurred. According to the investigation, Wigglesworth had forcibly entered Cochran's apartment, leading to a physical altercation. Cochran stated that he acted in self-defense after Wigglesworth broke in and assaulted him. The two men had a brief friendship, and earlier that day, Cochran had given Wigglesworth a ride and bought him snacks but had not allowed him into his apartment. Wigglesworth later returned and forced his way into the residence.
A thorough investigation was conducted by the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office and the Concord Police Department, which included witness interviews and a review of surveillance footage. The tenant, Cochran, was cooperative with the investigation. He met the responding officers outside the building and informed them that he had shot Wigglesworth. After more than a year of investigation, the Attorney General's Office concluded that Tyler Cochran was justified in using deadly force. It was determined that Cochran acted in self-defense, and as a result, no charges were filed against him in connection with the death of Terrence Wigglesworth. The manner of death was ruled a homicide, defined by the medical examiner as the killing of one person by another, though the legal system found it to be justified.
