Ryan B. Schneese, a 21-year-old White/Caucasian male from Wilmington, Delaware, had grown up with deep ties to the community before his life was cut short by gun violence. Born in Abington, Pennsylvania, Ryan graduated from A.I. DuPont High School in 2013. He had been involved with the Fraims Boys & Girls Club and West End Neighborhood House and was an honorary member of St. Ann's Renew Groups.
Those who knew him remembered his interest in sports, particularly basketball, and his obituary described someone who valued time with family and friends.
On the evening of March 11, 2016, violence erupted in the 600 block of Taylor Street in Wilmington. At approximately 6:11 p.m., Wilmington police were dispatched after receiving a report of shots fired. When officers reached the scene, they found Ryan lying on the sidewalk suffering from gunshot injuries. Police provided emergency aid before he was transported to Christiana Hospital. Contemporary reporting described the wounds as being to his upper torso. Ryan remained hospitalized for nearly three weeks, but on March 31 he died from the injuries sustained in the shooting. An autopsy was subsequently performed, and authorities classified his death as a homicide.
For a considerable period after the shooting, no publicly announced prosecution brought an immediate resolution to the case. The investigation continued within the Wilmington Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division, and almost three years later detectives announced a major development. On February 4, 2019, a New Castle County grand jury returned an indictment against Sha'mir Sudler, whom investigators said they had developed as a suspect through extensive investigative work. The indictment charged Sudler with first-degree attempted murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a person prohibited, and possession of ammunition by a person prohibited. The use of an attempted-murder charge is notable because Ryan had already died and his death had been classified as a homicide; the publicly reported indictment nevertheless identified attempted murder rather than a murder count. At the time the indictment was announced, Sudler was already incarcerated at Sussex Correctional Institution. He was arraigned on the new charges and was held on $340,000 cash-only bail.
Sudler had previously been involved in a separate Wilmington gun and gang prosecution. In March 2017, he pleaded guilty to gang participation, first-degree reckless endangering, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and second-degree conspiracy in connection with gunfire on Vandever Avenue during March 2016. In that separate matter, prosecutors said he admitted firing multiple shots and that investigators had uncovered communications with another member of the Only My Brothers, or OMB, gang concerning shooting at a member of the Shoot to Kill, or STK, gang. He received a three-year prison term, followed by six months of home confinement or work release and a year of probation, and the felony conviction prohibited him from legally possessing firearms and ammunition. That earlier prosecution involved a different shooting and does not by itself establish that Ryan's shooting was gang-motivated or reveal a motive for what happened on Taylor Street.
Later Delaware Superior Court records provide the clearest available picture of how the 2019 prosecution ultimately ended. In the court record, the defendant's surname is rendered as “Suder” rather than “Sudler.” Under Superior Court case ID 1901005656, Sha'mir Suder pleaded guilty on July 22, 2019, to first-degree assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. On November 8, 2019, the court imposed a 25-year Level V sentence for first-degree assault, suspended after two years of Level V incarceration for six months at Level IV followed by 18 months at Level III supervision. For the firearm offense, the court imposed an additional 10 years at Level V. The record therefore shows that the prosecution concluded with assault and firearm convictions rather than a murder conviction.
Years afterward, Suder attempted to have the sentence modified. In a motion submitted in February 2024, he argued that he had completed the minimum mandatory portion of his sentence, said he had learned from his past conduct, and maintained that he was no longer involved in gang activity. Delaware Superior Court President Judge Jan R. Jurden denied the request on March 21, 2024. The court found the motion had been filed more than four years after sentencing, well beyond the normal 90-day period for seeking a sentence reduction, and concluded that no extraordinary circumstances justified reopening the sentence. The court left the original punishment intact.
The publicly available record thus traces the case from the Taylor Street shooting, through Ryan's death and the homicide ruling, to the eventual identification and prosecution of Sudler several years later. Available reporting identifies Sudler as the named suspect connected to the shooting and does not identify a second publicly charged suspect in Ryan's case. The record located online likewise does not show a later murder trial or murder conviction specifically for Ryan's death; instead, the prosecution that followed the 2019 indictment ultimately resulted in the first-degree assault and firearm guilty pleas and the substantial prison sentence described in the Delaware court record.
