Nycire Amaddie Mills, a 23-year-old Black man, was fatally shot during the early morning hours of August 9, 2017, in Wilmington, Delaware. Although some records associated him with Wilmington, police identified him as a resident of New Castle after his death.
At approximately 1:20 a.m., Wilmington police officers were dispatched to the 600 block of North Pine Street after the city's ShotSpotter system detected gunfire in the area.
When officers arrived, they found Mills lying on the western sidewalk with an apparent gunshot wound to the head. The street had become an active crime scene, but no gunman was waiting for police and no immediate description of anyone responsible was available.
Officers began emergency lifesaving measures while waiting for medical personnel. New Castle County paramedics continued treating Mills at the scene before transporting him to Christiana Hospital. Despite those efforts, he died from his injuries. Investigators confirmed that the gunfire had originated in the same block where he was discovered, but the initial police announcement did not explain what led to the shooting, whether Mills had been approached by someone he knew, or whether more than one person had been involved.
Police publicly identified Mills several days later. His obituary listed his date of birth as July 23, 1994, and said that funeral services would be held privately at the convenience of his family. His death added to a particularly violent year in Wilmington and was reported as the city's 23rd fatal shooting victim of 2017.
At the beginning of the investigation, authorities said they had no suspect information to release. Detective Brian Conkey was identified as the investigator handling the case, and police appealed for witnesses or anyone with information to contact the department or Delaware Crime Stoppers. Investigators did not announce a motive, identify a person of interest, or describe any evidence that publicly connected a particular individual to the shooting.
No reliable public record reviewed for the case shows that anyone has been arrested, charged, tried, or convicted for killing Mills. Later information continued to describe the homicide as unresolved, with no publicly identified suspect. The investigation therefore appears to have remained open or been eligible for review by Wilmington's cold-case investigators, who handle homicides in which the original leads have been exhausted. Mills' death remains a case in which the location and immediate circumstances are known, but the identity of the person who fired the fatal shot and the reason for the killing have never been publicly established.
