Corey J. Butler was a 21-year-old Black/African American man whose death on August 7, 2015, was the final consequence of a shooting that had occurred more than two years earlier in Bridgeville, Delaware. Although the date of his death is recorded in 2015, Delaware State Police trace the homicide back to Sunday, February 3, 2013, when Butler was shot at 12119 Ryan Lane in the Peaceful Acres community of Bridgeville.
Butler was struck by a single gunshot.
The wound did not immediately take his life, but it caused paralysis and left him living with the devastating effects of the shooting. He survived for approximately two and a half years after the attack. In August 2015, Butler died from medical complications related to the gunshot wound, and authorities linked his death directly to the injuries he had suffered in 2013. Online memorial records give his date of death as August 7.
The Delaware State Police subsequently listed Butler's case among its cold-case homicide investigations under case number 05-13-005726. Publicly released investigative information provides very few details about what led to the shooting. Authorities have not disclosed a documented motive, the circumstances immediately preceding the gunfire, a description of the shooter, or whether Butler knew the person who shot him. The official cold-case information simply establishes that Butler was shot once at the Ryan Lane location, was paralyzed as a result, and ultimately died from complications associated with that wound.
No publicly available law-enforcement information identifies a named suspect in Butler's killing, and no arrest has been publicly documented in connection with the shooting. Likewise, there are no publicly reported criminal charges, trials, guilty pleas, or convictions stemming from his homicide. Delaware State Police continued to publicize the case as an unsolved cold case and requested information from anyone who might know what happened, indicating that investigators were still seeking the evidence necessary to identify and prosecute the person responsible.
Butler's case is unusual because the violence and the resulting death were separated by years. What began as a nonfatal shooting in February 2013 became a homicide investigation after the long-term medical consequences of the gunshot ultimately proved fatal. Despite the passage of time and the official recognition that his death resulted from the shooting, the person responsible has not been publicly identified or brought to justice.
