Ainsley S. Cumberbatch Jr., a 23-year-old Black man from Wilmington, Delaware, was killed on the morning of February 21, 2017, in a double shooting along North Market Street. Known to relatives and friends as “Dooder,” Cumberbatch had been born in Wilmington on January 29, 1994. He was the son of Ainsley Cumberbatch Sr. and Koshelva Whittle and was remembered as part of a large family that included several brothers and sisters.
At approximately 10:54 a.m., Wilmington police officers were sent to the area of 22nd and North Market streets after receiving a report of gunfire and a possible person down. When officers reached the 2200 block of North Market Street, they found Cumberbatch suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. New Castle County paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. A second shooting victim, Jamiel Congo, was discovered with wounds to his arm and chest. Congo was treated by paramedics and rushed to Christiana Hospital in critical condition, but he later died from his injuries. The killings forced authorities to close northbound and southbound lanes of North Market Street for several hours while investigators examined the scene and searched for evidence.
The investigation continued for several weeks as detectives with the Wilmington Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division worked to identify the person responsible. Their inquiry eventually focused on Thomas Hollingsworth of Wilmington. Authorities located Hollingsworth in Pennsylvania, and on March 8, 2017, members of the First State Fugitive Task Force, the United States Marshals Service and the Eastern Pennsylvania Violent Crimes Task Force took him into custody. At that time, he was being held in connection with separate charges.
On April 4, 2017, a New Castle County grand jury indicted Hollingsworth in connection with the deaths of Cumberbatch and Congo. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Police publicly announced the arrest and charges several days later while Hollingsworth remained incarcerated at the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution awaiting arraignment in the homicide case.
The prosecution ultimately ended with a negotiated guilty plea rather than a murder trial. In October 2018, Hollingsworth pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Delaware prosecutors said the plea carried open sentencing and exposed him to a minimum of 35 years in prison. His sentencing was scheduled for January 25, 2019. The available online sources reviewed for this synopsis establish the arrest, indictment and guilty pleas, but they do not reliably document the exact sentence ultimately imposed.
