Matthew Chaney, 19, male, left his Springfield neighborhood just after midnight on October 19, 2024, and never made it home. A ShotSpotter alert drew officers to the 100 block of Nursery Street in the Liberty Heights area around 12:35 a.m.; they found him on the pavement, fatally shot, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Early reports did not name him, but by later that day and in the days that followed authorities identified the victim as Chaney and opened a homicide investigation led by
the Springfield Police Homicide Unit alongside the Hampden District Attorney's Office.
Detectives developed a suspect within days. On October 28, investigators obtained a warrant for a 16-year-old male on a murder charge. On November 1, 2024, in a joint operation with Massachusetts State Police VFAS, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force, and Manchester Police, the juvenile was located at a residence in Manchester, New Hampshire. He was extradited to Massachusetts on November 6 and booked in Springfield; because of his age, officials initially withheld his name.
As the case moved forward, prosecutors alleged the killing happened during a robbery: the teen is accused of stealing Chaney's backpack, and police said the victim and suspect did not know one another. In February 2025, a Hampden County grand jury indicted the defendant as an adult—publicly identifying him as Marcos Noguera III—on charges including first-degree murder, armed robbery with a firearm, and illegal possession of a firearm. Coverage summarizing the indictment noted the crime scene on Nursery Street and described the attack as a sudden act of violence against a stranger.
The arrest and indictment offered the first measure of resolution for a killing that had jolted the city. Memorial pages and incident logs fixed the date and place of Chaney's death, while regional outlets traced the investigation from ShotSpotter activation to interstate arrest, extradition, and ultimately the decision to try the accused as an adult. The case remains rooted in the facts gathered that night on Nursery Street—an unarmed 19-year-old found mortally wounded, and a suspect now facing the most serious charges under state law.
