Tyron Lake was a 19-year-old Black or African American man whose life ended during a violent encounter in a rural area outside Bridgeville, Delaware, during the early morning hours of August 24, 2017. At approximately 2:33 a.m., Delaware State Police troopers were dispatched to Apple Tree Road, south of Oak Road, after receiving a report of a man suffering from a gunshot wound. When authorities arrived, they found Lake inside a vehicle with a wound to his lower torso.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators initially described the case as a double shooting. A second man, later identified as Preston W. Nailor of Georgetown, had also been wounded. Nailor contacted 911 and reported that he had been shot, and he was taken to a hospital for treatment. Lake's body was transported to the Delaware Division of Forensic Sciences, where an autopsy determined that he had died from the gunshot wound and officially classified the death as a homicide.
As detectives reconstructed what had happened, they concluded that the meeting on Apple Tree Road had not been an ordinary chance encounter. According to Delaware State Police, Brooke L. Squatrito of Bridgeville arranged what was presented to Lake as a drug transaction. Investigators alleged that the meeting was actually organized so Nailor could rob him. Lake and Nailor met alone at the predetermined location, and Nailor entered the passenger side of Lake's vehicle under the appearance that the transaction was about to take place.
Gunfire erupted while the two men were inside or near the vehicle. Police said Lake and Nailor exchanged shots, leaving both wounded. Lake's injury proved fatal, while Nailor survived. The circumstances transformed what had allegedly been planned as a robbery into a homicide investigation, with detectives examining Squatrito's role in arranging the meeting as well as Nailor's actions during the confrontation.
For more than a month after the shooting, the Delaware State Police Homicide Unit continued gathering evidence and identifying the people believed to be responsible. On September 29, 2017, detectives arrested Nailor and Squatrito. Nailor was then 35 and Squatrito was 20. Both were charged with first-degree murder, first-degree attempted robbery, two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and second-degree conspiracy.
Following their arraignments, both defendants were held in the custody of the Delaware Department of Correction. Nailor's cash bond was set at approximately $1.18 million, while Squatrito's was set at approximately $652,000. The charges reflected the prosecution's allegation that the pair had acted together in planning the attempted robbery, even though Squatrito was not identified as the person who exchanged gunfire with Lake.
Nailor later entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder. In November 2018, the Delaware Department of Justice reported that a Superior Court judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison. The sentence included a requirement that he complete the KEY substance-abuse treatment program while incarcerated. After his release from prison, he was ordered to serve an additional 10 years on probation.
Publicly available reports confirm Squatrito's arrest and the original charges filed against her, but they do not provide the same clear account of a final plea, trial verdict or sentence in her case. What is established is that investigators considered her a central participant in arranging the meeting that placed Lake and Nailor together for the intended robbery. Nailor's guilty plea and prison sentence ultimately brought a measure of legal accountability for the fatal shooting, while the case remained a devastating example of how a planned robbery escalated into the loss of a young life.
