The Wilmington Police Department’s new homicide unit of made its first arrest, weeks after it was created last month.
41 year old Wilmington resident Marcus Cruz, an employee at Reed Recycling in New Castle, was arrested Thursday on charges of first-degree murder and robbery in connection with the strangulation death of his co-worker, 57 year-old Donald Smith of Wilmington.
Police say Smith's partially-clothed body was discovered by a cleaning crew Tuesday morning in Eden Park, located in Wilmington's Southbridge neighborhood.
They believe Cruz, currently being held without bail, acted alone, but further details of the investigation remain pending.
At a press conference Friday morning announcing the arrest, Mayor Dennis Williams (D) said the unit’s success in this case showed the true value of having dedicated homicide investigators.
"A homicide investigator never sleeps, works around the clock, gets all the evidence and they work relentlessly to go after the suspect," said Williams. "This is what we want to do. We're telling people that we are not playing with these violent offenders. One more thug off the street and I'm very happy."
Williams and police officials also consider the arrest a positive step towards their primary goal of building trust with residents.
Police Chief Bobby Cummings attributed the quick apprehension of Cruz to timely information from witnesses he says are more willing to come forward thanks to new deployment efforts that focused on that goal.
"The relationship building is our main focus," Cummings said. "We have people who have participated in this because we're building those relationships, and we think we got to that a little bit sooner."
Cummings adds a soon-to-graduate police academy class should provide the number of officers needed to blanket targeted crime hot-spots and become fixtures in their assigned neighborhoods.
"We believe that at that point we will have the necessary force to impact a lot of the violence that's impacted the city."
Homicide detectives are currently reviewing previous unsolved cases, hoping their relationship building efforts result in more arrests.
This arrest is the only the fourth of 25 city homicide cases this year.