Joquon N. Coverdale, a 22-year-old Black man, was fatally shot in Wilmington, Delaware, on the evening of May 5, 2017. Coverdale had been born on August 11, 1994, in Newark, Delaware, and was the father of three children. His death unfolded shortly before 8 p.m. near the intersection of Second and Van Buren streets, in Wilmington's Hilltop area.
At approximately 7:56 p.m., a Wilmington police K-9 officer conducting proactive patrol near Lancaster Avenue and Van Buren Street heard several
gunshots. The officer alerted dispatchers and other units, then drove toward the sound. When the officer reached Second and Van Buren streets, a large crowd had gathered and Coverdale was found lying in the roadway with gunshot wounds to his head and torso.
New Castle County paramedics treated Coverdale at the scene before he was rushed to Christiana Hospital. Despite those efforts, he died from his injuries. Early police and news reports contained conflicting information about his age, at times identifying him as 23 or 39, but funeral records and gun-violence records identify him as 22 at the time of his death.
The investigation was assigned to Detective Mary Quinn of the Wilmington Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division. The case remained open for more than two years while detectives worked to identify the person believed responsible. Police eventually developed Naheem Gosa as a suspect.
On July 22, 2019, Detective Quinn presented the investigation to a New Castle County grand jury. The grand jury indicted Gosa, then 25, on first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, two counts of first-degree reckless endangering and possession of a firearm by a person prohibited.
Two days later, on July 24, members of the Wilmington Police Department's Street Crimes Unit found Gosa in the 300 block of East 23rd Street. He was taken into custody without incident. Following his arraignment in Justice of the Peace Court 20, he was committed to the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution in lieu of $1,210,000 cash-only bail.
Available online reporting confirms Gosa's indictment and arrest in connection with Coverdale's killing, but it does not provide a reliably documented final trial result, conviction, acquittal, dismissal or sentence. Accordingly, the last clearly established public development is that Gosa was formally charged with the murder and related firearm and reckless-endangering offenses and was jailed on substantial cash bail while the criminal case proceeded.
