Marquis Pressey, a 23-year-old Black/African American man, was found mortally wounded on a Wilmington summer night in 2014, his life cut short just as Thursday turned to Friday. In the early hours of August 7, officers and medics were called to the area near the 900 block of West 7th Street, where Pressey lay in the street with multiple gunshot wounds. Despite efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead at the scene, the suddenness of the violence leaving his family and neighborhood reeling.
Obituaries published in the days that followed fixed his age at twenty-three and his death in early August, underscoring how swiftly the loss rippled through those who knew him.
Authorities identified the killing as a homicide and appealed for information, but public records and subsequent reporting do not reflect an arrest or publicly named suspect connected to Pressey’s shooting. Years later, Wilmington police continued to emphasize the persistence of their Cold Case Unit on unsolved homicides—an institutional reminder of cases like Pressey’s still awaiting resolution. No official announcements have documented a suspect apprehension or charges in his death.
