Black / African American Antoine Terry, age 24, was shot just after midnight on December 28, 2017, in the Arbor Place townhouses off Parma Avenue in New Castle, Delaware. Police were first alerted to gunfire around 10:42 p.m. on December 27, and shortly after 12:25 a.m. officers found him unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds near 245 Parma Avenue, where he was pronounced dead at the scene. Local reports the same day identified the victim as a 24-year-old man from New Castle.
In the hours leading up to the shooting, evidence showed that the 24-year-old victim had been with his friend Shaheed Matthews and Matthews s girlfriend at a residence on Parma Avenue. Surveillance video captured two people leaving that home around 10:38 p.m., moving toward the spot where the confrontation occurred. Footage showed a struggle, a chase, and then the shooter firing several rounds before fleeing; when police found the victim, he was wearing a black jacket with a white hood.
Detectives built the case through circumstantial evidence. Cellphone extractions revealed that Matthews had been searching for a firearm in the days immediately before the shooting. Investigators did not recover the murder weapon, but they seized a jacket from Matthews that tested positive for gunshot residue on the right cuff. Pole-camera and neighborhood surveillance synchronized with witness accounts to place him leaving the residence, arranging a pickup nearby, and moving around the area in the minutes after the gunfire.
Matthews was arrested and charged with Murder First Degree and weapons offenses. In April 2019, a Superior Court jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony; a bench trial also found him guilty of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited. On July 1, 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison plus three years. Subsequent filings and appellate proceedings left the verdict and sentence intact, and state authorities publicly announced the life sentence in 2019.
