In the early morning hours of September 28, 2014, Anthony Wortham, a 38-year-old Black man, was fatally shot in Hartford, Connecticut. The events that led to his death began with an altercation at the R and D Food Mart on Albany Avenue.
Wortham was involved in a dispute with a man named Rory Taylor. Following the argument, Taylor contacted his brother, Benjamin White. Less than an hour later, at approximately 1:12 a.m., White arrived at the convenience store armed with a gun.
He navigated through a crowd of people before approaching Wortham and shooting him in the head at close range. The entire incident, from the initial altercation to the fatal shooting, was captured on the store's surveillance cameras.
In the wake of the shooting, the Hartford Police Department launched an investigation. Aided by the surveillance footage and information provided by witnesses, detectives were able to identify Benjamin White, then 28, as the primary suspect. Nearly a year after the incident, on September 1, 2015, police arrested White on Garden Street. He was charged with murder, criminal possession of a firearm, and criminal use of a firearm, and his bond was set at $1 million.
The legal proceedings against Benjamin White took a significant turn in April 2018. As his trial was about to begin, a key witness who was reportedly with White at the time of the shooting refused to testify without immunity. The prosecution determined that without this individual's testimony, they would be unable to prove their case against White beyond a reasonable doubt. Consequently, the murder charge against Benjamin White was dropped. While prosecutors noted that they could refile the charge if new evidence emerged, the case concluded without a conviction for the death of Anthony Wortham.
