Jermaine Meadows, a 23-year-old Black/African American male, was sitting in his car on the 700 block of Warner Street in Wilmington, Delaware, on February 21, 2022, when the afternoon was broken by gunfire. At about 2:32 p.m., Wilmington police were called to the block for reports of a shooting. Officers found Meadows suffering from gunshot wounds, rendered aid, and had him transported to a hospital, but he died from his injuries.
The investigation later centered on Lance Leatherbury of Laurel, Delaware. According to the Delaware Department of Justice, Leatherbury approached Meadows while Meadows was seated in his vehicle, shot him, and fled the scene. Wilmington Police assigned the case to Detective Joseph Wicks of the Criminal Investigations Division, and investigators eventually identified Leatherbury as the suspect in the killing.
Leatherbury was not immediately brought before Delaware authorities. Police said he had been apprehended in Pennsylvania on an unrelated matter on March 22, 2022, while the Wilmington homicide investigation continued. The case was later presented to a New Castle County grand jury on October 10, 2022, which returned an indictment against him. Initial charges included first-degree murder, two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, aggravated menacing, and second-degree conspiracy.
After extradition proceedings, Leatherbury was returned to Delaware in late July 2023. The Delaware Department of Justice later said he was arrested on July 25, 2023, following the Wilmington Police investigation, while contemporaneous reporting said he was extradited and arraigned in New Castle County Superior Court on July 28, 2023. At that arraignment, he was committed to the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution on $1,000,000 cash-only bail.
The case ultimately ended with Leatherbury entering a no-contest plea rather than going to trial on the original first-degree murder charge. On February 27, 2026, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The sentence followed his plea to manslaughter, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and second-degree conspiracy, closing the criminal case nearly four years after Meadows was killed on Warner Street.
