Arrest brings closure in murder case

Published 9:52 am Sunday, January 31, 2016

In a bit of good crime news, a man wanted in a fatal November shooting has been arrested.

Cordarryl Lamond Bell, 24, was arrested Friday by the U.S. Marshals Western Pennsylvania Fugitive Task Force in Erie, Pennsylvania, for the murder of Aquarius Nelson of Brookhaven, according to police.

Local police, as well as other agencies, have been searching for Bell since early November, when two men were shot in the city.

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Brookhaven police responded to a report of shots fired on East Independence Street around 4:30 p.m. Nov. 2. At 4:45 p.m., the BPD was dispatched to King’s Daughters Medical Center in reference to a person being shot. Nelson, 26, of 905 East Independence St., was pronounced dead at KDMC after being shot multiple times, according to police. The fatal shooting is alleged to have taken place on Walnut Street.

Bell’s name was also mentioned in connection to the shooting of Christopher Stringer, 39, at his residence on North Egypt Circle around 2:30 p.m. Nov. 2, police said. Stringer was wounded in the leg.

While nothing can bring back the victims of last year’s murders, arresting their alleged killers is a step toward making the city feel safe again. The idea of an accused killer loose on the streets is unnerving.

With Bell’s capture, two other murders in the city remain without arrests. The people responsible for the fatal shootings of Kelcay Humphrey and Bridget Hall are presumably still free.

Making arrests in those cases will go a long way toward turning a page on the violent year that 2015 was.