She was fifteen years old, sitting on the downstairs couch, when he came in through the back of the house.
It was 11:48 on the night of Wednesday, September 16, in the 100 block of Cherry Street in Dover. Four members of her family were asleep upstairs. The man who walked in — tall, thin, dressed in black with a mask over his face, according to police — had come through an unsecured rear door or window, and he was holding a black handgun. He pointed it at a fifteen-year-old girl and demanded money.
She told him she didn’t know what money he was talking about. So he took what was there: an iPad, an iPhone, four bottles of medication, and a Nintendo Switch charging dock. Then he went back out the way he came in, into the night, and a house full of sleeping people woke up to a different world than the one they’d gone to bed in.
For five weeks, that was the whole story — a masked man, a gun, a kid on a couch, and a back door that hadn’t been locked.
This week, it got its ending. Dover detectives identified two suspects and got warrants for both. One of them, it turned out, had been sitting in custody since the very next day — held at Sussex Community Corrections Center since September 17 on unrelated charges. Detectives interviewed him there; he stays in custody pending arraignment. The second man was taken into custody on October 21, with help from Probation and Parole. He was processed, arraigned, and committed to Sussex Correctional Institution on a $154,000 cash-only bond.
Both men are 30 years old and from Dover. Both are charged with Robbery in the First Degree, Burglary in the First Degree, Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony, Conspiracy in the Second Degree, and Theft — with the theft charge noting a victim 62 years of age or older.
You won’t find their names here, because Dover police didn’t release them. The department’s release carries a notice that Delaware’s House Bill 59, which took effect October 21, limits when police may release the names and photographs of adults charged with a crime — so in this case, the names stay in the warrant, not in the paper. What we can tell you is what they are accused of, what it carries, and that both of them are off the street.
Somewhere on Cherry Street there’s a family that locks a door now that didn’t used to get locked. A fifteen-year-old did everything right that night — she stayed calm, she told the truth, and she let things be taken instead of people. Things can be replaced. That’s the whole reason we’re telling you this story five weeks later: because the men accused of walking into her home are finally the ones behind a locked door.
Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the Dover Police Department at 302-736-7111.
Brought to you by Team Murphy Media.
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