Not guilty verdict in local murder trial

Man acquitted in 2018 killing in Wilmington

A New Castle County jury has acquitted a man of first-degree murder charges in the 2018 killing of a 25-yearold man in Wilmington.

After less than a week of trial testimony, a jury recently found Charles Jones not guilty of murdering Blayton

Palmer.

Police were alerted one morning in October 2018 and found Palmer with a gunshot wound at the 2300 block of N. Market St. He died a the hospital, police said after the shooting.

Jones, 25, was indicted last year in the cold-case shooting. Court documents did not disclose a motive in the shooting, and prosecutors in the Delaware Department of Justice declined to comment.

Jones was acquitted of both murder and a firearms charge at trial.

“The jury took longer to deliberate in coming to their conclusion than it took to present all of the evidence in the trial,” Assistant Public Defender Ralph Wilkinson, Jones’ attorney, said in a written statement. “This shows they took great care in arriving at their decision.”

Wilkinson emphasized that Jones has “always maintained his innocence.”

“Mr. Jones will move forward with his life and rebuild the parts of it that were lost during his incarceration for crimes in which he was found not guilty,” Wilkinson said.

No others have been charged with

Palmer’s killing.

According to an obituary, Palmer graduated from William Penn High School. He loved hunting and fishing with his father and great uncles on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and also “enjoyed riding dirt bikes and four wheels too,” the obituary said.

“As he grew older, he enjoyed family time with his immediate family and being at family gatherings,” the obituary added.