Richard Lee Charles Young, a 38-year-old Black man, was killed during a violent home invasion at his apartment in Wilmington, Delaware, on February 25, 2018. At approximately 9:24 that Sunday morning, Wilmington police officers were sent to the 2300 block of North Market Street after receiving a report of a shooting. When officers entered the residence, they found Young suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
He had already died from his injuries.
Investigators later determined that two masked men had entered Young's apartment armed with handguns. The intruders were wearing black ski masks and intended to rob him. During the robbery, Young was shot several times. What began as an apparent plan to take property ended with Young losing his life inside his own home. He left behind family members and friends who remembered him as a Wilmington native who had worked through Performance Staffing in several different jobs.
The homicide investigation was initially assigned to Detective Mary Quinn of the Wilmington Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division. Despite investigators continuing to pursue leads, no immediate arrest was made, and the case remained unresolved for years. As time passed, Young's killing became a cold case, but it was not abandoned. Detectives preserved the evidence and continued examining the circumstances surrounding the home invasion, waiting for information that could identify the two people responsible.
The investigation gained new momentum through the work of the Wilmington Police Department's Cold Case Unit. Detective Quinn, Cold Case Investigator Steven Rizzo and Detective Devon Jones eventually developed evidence identifying Nasir Anderson as one of the men involved. The case was presented to a New Castle County grand jury on February 13, 2023, nearly five years after the killing, and the grand jury returned an indictment against Anderson.
Police took Anderson into custody the following day after officers encountered him during a pedestrian stop. He was initially charged with first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, home invasion, first-degree robbery, second-degree conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child. After his arraignment, he was committed to the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution in lieu of more than $1.3 million in cash-only bail.
Authorities also identified the second participant in the home invasion. Prosecutors did not publicly name that person, but they reported that the accomplice had been killed in July 2018, only months after Young's death. Because the second suspect was deceased, Anderson became the only surviving person prosecuted for the attack.
On April 22, 2024, Anderson entered a guilty plea in New Castle County Superior Court. Under the plea agreement, he admitted guilt to second-degree murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, first-degree robbery and second-degree conspiracy. The plea brought the six-year investigation to a close without the need for a trial and formally established his criminal responsibility for participating in the armed robbery that led to Young's death.
On October 18, 2024, Anderson was sentenced to a combined 102 years in prison. The court suspended the sentence after 23 years of incarceration, to be followed by decreasing levels of probation. Although the sentence could not undo the loss suffered by Young's loved ones, it marked the final legal resolution of a homicide that had remained unsolved for nearly five years. The persistence of Wilmington detectives and cold-case investigators ultimately transformed a long period of uncertainty into an arrest, a conviction and a substantial prison sentence.
