On the evening of September 7, 2020, 45-year-old Michael Milton, a male resident of Woodlynne, New Jersey, was fatally shot while sitting in his vehicle at a Gulf gas station at the intersection of Mount Ephraim and Kaighn avenues in Camden. Surveillance footage from the scene captured the tragic moments around 11:18 p.m. when an individual approached Milton's car, fired a single shot, and then walked away.
Milton was discovered in his vehicle over 30 minutes later with a gunshot wound to the head. He was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The investigation into Michael Milton's death led authorities to identify 35-year-old Cornell Tarte of Camden as the primary suspect. Investigators utilized surveillance footage from multiple locations to track Tarte's movements and connect him to the shooting. A significant breakthrough in the case came on September 28, 2020, when Tarte was apprehended in Atlantic City by the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force on unrelated charges. Upon his arrest, a cellphone was seized from Tarte which contained digital photographs of a Ruger EC9s 9mm handgun.
The evidence against Tarte solidified in March 2021 when a Ruger EC9s 9mm handgun was recovered in Burlington County. Ballistic testing confirmed that this was the same weapon used in Milton's murder, as it was a match to the shell casing found at the crime scene. Following a seven-week trial, a Camden County jury found Cornell Tarte guilty of first-degree murder and multiple weapons offenses on December 20, 2022. On March 23, 2023, Tarte was sentenced to 63 years in New Jersey State Prison. Under the No Early Release Act, he will be required to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for parole.
