Blayton Antonio Joseph Palmer, a 25-year-old Black man, was fatally shot during the predawn hours of October 17, 2018, in Wilmington's Brandywine Village neighborhood. At approximately 4:03 a.m., Wilmington police officers were flagged down and told that someone near the 2300 block of North Market Street had apparently been shot. Officers found Palmer near the intersection of North Market and East 23rd streets suffering from a gunshot wound.
He was rushed to a hospital, but his injuries proved fatal.
The shooting left Palmer's family mourning someone whose life had been closely connected to Delaware and the people around him. Born in Wilmington on November 26, 1992, he attended schools in the Red Clay Consolidated School District and graduated from William Penn High School. His family remembered his childhood enjoyment of hunting and fishing with his father and great-uncles on Maryland's Eastern Shore, as well as riding dirt bikes and four-wheelers. As he grew older, spending time with his immediate and extended family became an important part of his life. He was also the father of a young son.
Detectives began investigating the killing immediately, examining the area where Palmer had been found and appealing to anyone with information to come forward. Despite the early police response, no arrest was announced during the initial investigation. The homicide remained unresolved for years, eventually becoming what Wilmington police publicly described as a cold case. The passage of time left Palmer's relatives without a criminal prosecution while investigators continued working to determine who was responsible.
A major development finally came in May 2023, more than four and a half years after the shooting. A New Castle County grand jury indicted Charles Jones in connection with Palmer's death. Jones, who was 25 when the charges were announced, was accused of murder and related firearms offenses. Police arrested him after executing a search warrant at his residence, and he was committed to prison in lieu of more than $1 million cash bail. Authorities did not publicly explain what evidence or investigative breakthrough had allowed detectives to obtain the indictment after so many years.
The arrest transformed the case from an unsolved predawn homicide into an active murder prosecution, but an indictment is an accusation rather than a finding of guilt. Publicly accessible reporting reviewed for this account confirms Jones's arrest and the charges filed against him, but it does not clearly establish that the case proceeded to a completed trial, conviction or sentencing. Palmer's death therefore remains tied to the early-morning scene on North Market Street, the years his family waited for answers and the eventual arrest of a man accused of taking his life.
