On a cold Friday night in Washington, D.C., the life of 53-year-old Eric Linnair Wright was cut short by gunfire. It was February 17, 2017, when police were called to the 900 block of 12th Street, Northeast, at approximately 9:21 p.m. following reports of gunshots. Upon their arrival, officers discovered Wright, a male resident of Northwest, D.C., unresponsive and suffering from a gunshot wound.
Emergency services rushed him to a nearby hospital, but his injuries proved fatal, and he was pronounced dead.
For years, the case remained unsolved, a painful open wound for the family and friends of Wright, who was known to some as 'Mustafa' or 'Fish.'. He was remembered as a caring and loving man, born and raised in the nation's capital, with a notable passion for training and breeding dogs. The investigation into his violent death continued, with the Metropolitan Police Department seeking answers and offering a substantial reward for information that could lead to an arrest and conviction. Investigators released a video to the public in hopes of identifying two persons of interest in connection with the fatal shooting.
A significant breakthrough in the investigation came in December 2020, nearly three years after the shooting. On December 4, 2020, law enforcement arrested 39-year-old Cotey Wynn of Southeast, D.C., charging him with Second Degree Murder while Armed. The arrest was made by members of the Capital Area Fugitive Task Force, acting on a D.C. Superior Court arrest warrant. The break in the case reportedly came after police received an anonymous tip identifying Wynn as a suspect seen in surveillance footage that had been released.
The arrest of Cotey Wynn brought a shocking twist to the story. At the time of his arrest, Wynn was working as a 'violence interrupter' for the anti-violence program Cure the Streets, which is run through the D.C. Office of the Attorney General. He had been portrayed as a man who had turned his life around and was working to prevent the very type of violence that took Eric Linnair Wright's life. Wynn had a prior criminal history, and at the time of his arrest for Wright's murder, he was under the supervision of the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia. He was formally charged in connection with the 2017 shooting, and a judge scheduled a preliminary hearing to determine if there was sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial.
