Grayson Ewell, a 19-year-old Black male from Wilmington, Delaware, was riding north on North Clayton Street on the evening of October 2, 2018, when gunfire struck the vehicle in which he was traveling. At about 7:25 p.m., Wilmington police were directed to the 200 block of North Clayton Street by a gunfire-detection alert. Officers found multiple spent shell casings but no injured person at the scene. A short time later, Ewell arrived at St.
Francis Hospital in a private vehicle with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead soon afterward. The other people in the vehicle were not reported injured.
The investigation continued for more than eight months before detectives publicly identified Terrell S. Mobley as a suspect. Mobley had already been taken into custody on June 5, 2019, after Wilmington's Street Crimes Unit encountered him in the 1600 block of Coleman Street. Police reported recovering a loaded Cowbray PM-11 9-millimeter handgun containing 21 rounds, including one in the chamber. That arrest initially led to charges of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited and carrying a concealed deadly weapon.
On June 10, 2019, Detective William Ball presented the Ewell homicide investigation to a New Castle County grand jury. The grand jury indicted Mobley on first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and three counts of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited. The attempted-murder allegations reflected the prosecution's position that the shooting also endangered or targeted other occupants of the vehicle. Mobley received cash-only bail totaling more than $1.1 million on the homicide-related charges, in addition to bail imposed in the separate gun case.
Court proceedings later revealed more about the prosecution's planned theory. Delaware prosecutors sought to introduce testimony from two witnesses who allegedly would say that Mobley admitted firing the gun that killed the victim and that he had intended to shoot another person over an alleged drug debt. The court ruled that evidence concerning the supposed drug debt and Mobley's alleged criminal relationships was too prejudicial and insufficiently reliable for the state to use in the manner proposed. That ruling concerned the admissibility of evidence and was not a determination that Mobley was innocent or guilty.
Mobley's first trial in the murder case ended without a verdict. After the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision, the court declared a mistrial. The publicly available materials reviewed do not establish that Mobley was later convicted or acquitted of killing Ewell. Separate proceedings arising from Mobley's June 2019 firearm arrest did result in convictions for carrying a concealed deadly weapon, possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, and possession of ammunition by a person prohibited, followed by a sentence of 31 years of unsuspended imprisonment. Those convictions concerned the later gun-possession arrest and should not be confused with a conviction for Ewell's homicide.
