In the late hours of a Wednesday evening in Madison, Wisconsin, the life of 31-year-old David Edwards, a Black / African American male, was tragically cut short. On March 1, 2017, Edwards was at a gas station on East Washington Avenue when he was fatally shot. The incident was not a random act of violence; police later confirmed that he had been specifically targeted, though the reasons were initially unclear to the public.
The shooting sent ripples of concern through the community as authorities began their investigation into the deliberate killing.
The investigation into Edwards' death unfolded over the following year, leading to a startling revelation: he was the unintended victim in a deadly case of mistaken identity. In April 2018, criminal documents revealed that the accused gunman, 26-year-old Jordan Sharlow, had mistaken Edwards for another man. Sharlow was subsequently arrested and charged with first-degree murder for the death of David Edwards.
Further details from the court records illustrated a grim connection to another homicide. The man Sharlow had allegedly intended to target was 29-year-old Ricardo Simms. Tragically, Simms himself was shot and killed just five months after Edwards' death. While an arrest was made in the case of the mistakenly identified David Edwards, no arrests have been announced in the subsequent killing of the intended target, Ricardo Simms. For his alleged role in the death of David Edwards, Jordan Sharlow's bond was set at one million dollars.
