There may have been 3 shooters in Laurel teen's slaying, and a second retaliatory shooting (2024)

Police have provided few details about what happened the April afternoon 18-year-old Corey Mumford was shot and killed in Laurel, but an arrest warrant recently filed for one of the suspects reveals new details.

Mumford, a popular basketball player and college-bound senior at Laurel High School, died after being shot eight times, according to the warrant. It happened around 2:40 p.m. on April 14, as he was walking with friends outside Wexford Village apartments. Police have said he was not the intended target.

Two suspects have been arrested in Mumford's homicide, but the warrant says there may be a third. Jhalir Henry, a 27-year-old from Delmar, was arrested and charged with murder April 21. A second suspect, 28-year-old Donregus Holland of Hurlock, Maryland, was arrested and charged May 18.

A few hours after Mumford's killing, a second shooting occurred on Shiloh Church Road in Laurel in which one person was injured, according to police. The warrant says that shooting may have been retaliatory.

What happened at Wexford Village

The Laurel Police Department requested Delaware State Police take over the investigation into Mumford's death. A state police detective wrote Henry's warrant, which includes the accounts of several witnesses and informants.

One witness told police they saw two cars enter the Building 105 parking lot just before the shooting, the warrant says. One was a gray, four-door passenger car with tinted windows, and the other was a light blue "cross-over type" vehicle. Henry was identified by the witness as getting out of the gray car, while another suspect exited the other, according to the warrant.

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The witness said Henry "began shooting in the air then ran around the left side of the building as the other suspect ran around the right," the warrant says. More shots were fired at the rear of the building where Mumford was shot, the detective wrote, before the suspects ran back to their respective cars and left.

Another witness saw two masked shooters come around the right side of the building and begin shooting, the warrant says, but ran and "never saw the third shooter."

A third witness "saw three suspects with handguns standing over (Mumford's) body with 'oh sh**' looks on their faces," the detective wrote. The witness identified one of them as Henry, and said one of the suspects "ran up a second later than the other two."

Mumford was shot six times in the back, once in an arm and once in a leg, according to the warrant. At least two types of shell casings were found at the scene.

A second shooting, hours later

Just after midnight April 15, Delaware State Police responded to another shooting on Shiloh Church Road in Laurel. An unidentified victim who may or may not have been Henry was struck in the neck and ultimately suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to court documents.

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In that shooting, an unknown suspect or suspects shot directly through windows the victim and his girlfriend were sitting in front of, the warrant says. An informant whose name is redacted in the warrant "stated that this shooting was in retaliation for the shooting that Jhalir was involved in earlier," the detective wrote.

The informant also told police the name of the intended target of the shooting in which Mumford was killed, but that name was also redacted in the warrant. The informant was sure the intended target was responsible for shooting the Shiloh Church Road victim, according to the warrant.

Suspects may have been at Hollybrook prior to Mumford's shooting

A few days later, an informant told police "that the suspects in the shooting were in the front of the 300 building of Holly Brook Apartments in Laurel just prior to the shooting" and identified the suspects, the warrant says.

That led police to review surveillance footage from Hollybrook, which showed several males in front of the 300 building about 10 minutes before Mumford's killing. Hollybrook is about 2 miles away from Wexford Village.

One of the men was wearing yellow shorts, which a witness had previously said Henry had been wearing during the shooting, according to the warrant. A gray car with tinted windows was in front of the building, as well as a silver Volkswagen. Both cars left Hollybrook around 2:30 p.m., and other surveillance footage showed the cars heading toward Wexford Village, the warrant says.

Multiple shootings have occurred at Hollybrook, off Discount Land Road, over the past few months.

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On April 12, an "adult male" was shot there, according to the Laurel Police Department, but no other information has been provided.

On April 24, Laurel police arrested two men after shots were fired at Hollybrook. Police said the men, ages 18 and 19, were the “occupants of the suspect vehicle," but neither were charged with firearms offenses. The 19-year-old was charged with possession of ammunition by a person prohibited.

More shots were fired at Hollybrook on May 15, according to the Laurel Police Department. No other information has been provided.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on Sussex County and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Twitter @MarvelMcNaught