Douglas Macarthur Kimball Jr., a 48-year-old White male, was killed inside his home west of Felton, Delaware, on September 6, 2015. Kimball lived along the 1000 block of Cabin Ridge Road, where he was known as a quiet, hardworking man who largely kept to himself. He was employed by Sea Watch in Milford and enjoyed working with his hands, including tinkering with engines, gardening, crabbing, attending auctions and hunting for old bottles.
Friends and neighbors later described him as someone who caused no trouble and was willing to help others.
In the hours before his death, Kimball had reportedly been helping a friend with a project. That friend became concerned when Kimball failed to show up as expected and could not be reached. According to a later account from Delaware State Police, the friend drove past Kimball's residence, noticed that his truck was still there and realized something might be wrong. Authorities were contacted, and troopers were dispatched to the Cabin Ridge Road property at approximately 10:45 p.m. for a welfare check. Inside the residence, Kimball was discovered in the living room with multiple gunshot wounds to his upper torso. A later police account described him as having been found slumped in front of the television.
The Delaware Division of Forensic Science took custody of Kimball's body and conducted an autopsy. The examination confirmed that he had been shot multiple times in the upper torso, and his death was formally ruled a homicide. Investigators immediately treated the residence as a crime scene and began trying to reconstruct who had been around Kimball during the final hours of his life and who could have had a reason to enter his home and shoot him.
The investigation proved difficult. Delaware State Police spoke with Kimball's neighbors, friends and acquaintances, eventually interviewing more than 25 people. Investigators said they repeatedly heard similar descriptions of his life: he worked frequently, kept to himself, was regarded as a good neighbor and was not known for creating problems with others. Those interviews did not produce the information detectives needed to identify the person responsible for the shooting. Police publicly acknowledged that despite what they had learned about Kimball and his activities, they still could not answer the central question of who killed him.
Three years after the killing, Delaware State Police again highlighted the case publicly. In September 2018, investigators confirmed that Kimball's murder remained unsolved despite their efforts and renewed attention to the investigation. Police continued seeking information from anyone who might have known about Kimball's movements, visitors to his home or circumstances surrounding the shooting. The case has continued to be identified in publicly available cold-case information as an unsolved Delaware homicide.
No publicly available information located for the case identifies a named suspect, and there is no indication that anyone has been arrested or charged with Kimball's murder. Consequently, there have been no reported criminal proceedings, trials or convictions connected to his death. The circumstances suggest that whoever shot Kimball was able to leave his Cabin Ridge Road home without being immediately identified, leaving investigators dependent on witness information and evidence gathered from the residence. Years after the killing, Douglas Kimball's homicide remained unresolved, with the identity of his killer still unknown.
