Santanu Muhuri, a 64-year-old man, was working inside the Lancaster Market at 101 North Clayton Street in Wilmington on the afternoon of January 9, 2017. Muhuri had operated the neighborhood store for years and was remembered by nearby residents as a kind, hardworking merchant who treated customers well. Shortly after 1 p.m., Devonte Dorsett and a 14-year-old accomplice entered the market intending to commit a robbery. Dorsett carried a.
45-caliber handgun, pointed it at Muhuri and demanded money.
Court records indicated that a struggle developed inside the store. During the confrontation, Dorsett fired the handgun, striking Muhuri in the head. The two assailants then fled with approximately $20, leaving him gravely wounded behind the counter. An ambulance crew traveling nearby was flagged down, and New Castle County paramedics treated Muhuri at the scene before rushing him to Christiana Hospital. Despite those efforts, he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.
The shooting shocked the surrounding community. A makeshift memorial appeared outside the market as customers and neighbors mourned a familiar figure who had spent years serving the neighborhood. Police initially appealed to the public for information and announced a reward of up to $10,000 for evidence leading to an arrest and conviction. Detectives from the Wilmington Police Department's Homicide and Violent Crime Unit investigated the killing, and information supplied through community cooperation helped them identify Dorsett and the juvenile as suspects.
Both suspects were arrested within days. Dorsett was initially charged with first-degree murder, first-degree conspiracy, first-degree robbery, two counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony, carrying a concealed deadly weapon, resisting arrest and offenses involving possession of a firearm and ammunition by a prohibited person. He was committed to the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution in lieu of $2.2 million cash bail. The juvenile was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree conspiracy, first-degree robbery, two firearm counts and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. He was detained at the New Castle County Detention Center in lieu of $700,000 cash bail.
The cases were eventually resolved through guilty pleas rather than murder trials. In February 2018, the juvenile accomplice pleaded guilty in Family Court to criminally negligent homicide, first-degree robbery and second-degree conspiracy. He received three years in a juvenile detention facility followed by an aftercare program, and the court extended jurisdiction over him until his twenty-first birthday. Because he was prosecuted as a juvenile, authorities did not publicly identify him in much of the contemporary reporting.
In May 2018, Dorsett pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and two counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony. A Superior Court judge later sentenced him to 35 years in prison. The convictions formally closed the criminal case against the two people responsible for the robbery, bringing a measure of legal accountability for a killing in which a longtime neighborhood merchant lost his life over only a small amount of money.
