On a summer afternoon, a White male named Jeff Worrell, a 63-year-old handyman, was simply enjoying a quiet moment on a picnic bench in a small park at the corner of Garden and Westland streets in Hartford, Connecticut. It was Sunday, July 16, 2017, and Worrell, a live-in maintenance man for a nearby apartment building, was a familiar and friendly face in the neighborhood. Tragically, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In an act of senseless violence, he was struck in the head by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting and was later pronounced dead at Saint Francis Hospital. Investigators quickly determined that Worrell was not the intended target.
The Hartford Police Department launched an intensive investigation. Utilizing surveillance footage from the area, detectives were able to identify a stolen vehicle believed to be connected to the shooting. The car was later located in the nearby city of New Britain. The discovery of the vehicle led investigators to several persons of interest. Through interviews and the collection of evidence, police were able to identify two suspects in the fatal shooting.
Within days of the tragic incident, on July 19, 2017, the Hartford police arrested two teenagers in connection with Jeff Worrell's death. The suspects were an 18-year-old, Deykevious Russaw, and an unnamed 16-year-old male from Middletown. Both were charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. It was revealed that the teenagers had been randomly firing at a group of people when Worrell was unintentionally caught in the crossfire.
Deykevious Russaw faced further legal troubles as he was also involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident just two days after the shooting, which resulted in the death of a 56-year-old woman. In July 2019, a Hartford Superior Court jury convicted Russaw of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Jeff Worrell. At the time of this conviction, he was already serving a 16-year sentence for the fatal hit-and-run.
