Michael L. Coffey, a 53-year-old White/Caucasian male from Marydel, Delaware, died on September 2, 2023, after a violent road-rage encounter in Hartly. That Saturday evening, shortly before 6:30 p.m., Delaware State Police were called to the 2400 block of Halltown Road after reports of a shooting. When troopers arrived, they found two vehicles stopped in the westbound lane and Coffey lying in the roadway with a gunshot wound.
Troopers and bystanders tried to save him until emergency medical personnel arrived, and he was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Investigators said the confrontation began while 27-year-old Joel Reynoso of Henderson, Maryland, was driving a blue 1998 Nissan Frontier pickup truck westbound on Halltown Road. According to police accounts, Reynoso was driving aggressively and nearly struck Coffey’s burgundy 2020 Dodge Durango. Coffey then passed Reynoso and stopped in the road, forcing Reynoso to stop as well. The situation escalated from there, with both men getting out of their vehicles and entering into a physical altercation. Witnesses eventually separated them, but the encounter did not end there.
Police said Coffey returned to Reynoso’s Nissan to retrieve a baseball cap that had fallen during the fight. At that moment, Reynoso allegedly fired a single shot from a handgun, striking Coffey in the torso. After the shooting, Reynoso remained in his vehicle, and responding troopers took him into custody without incident. The Delaware State Police Homicide Unit took over the investigation because of the circumstances of the shooting.
Authorities later said the handgun used in the shooting had been reported stolen from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida in 2015. Police also said Reynoso was prohibited from possessing a firearm, though publicly available reports did not specify the reason for that prohibition. Reynoso was charged with first-degree murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, carrying a concealed firearm, receiving a stolen firearm, possession of a deadly weapon by a person prohibited, reckless endangering in the first degree, and two counts of terroristic threatening.
Reynoso was arraigned after his arrest and committed to Sussex Correctional Institution on a $1,084,000 cash bond. Delaware State Police publicly identified Coffey as the victim on September 4, 2023, and said the homicide investigation remained active, with detectives asking anyone with information to contact investigators. Publicly available online reports reviewed did not show a final trial outcome or conviction for Reynoso.
