Delaware family mourns second brother’s death from gun violence

A bullet made Dahmiere Moody the oldest of his siblings after his brother was shot and killed during a botched robbery in 2015 in Wilmington.

Moody worked hard to make sure the remaining brothers and sisters (all from different mothers) stayed in touch with each other. When I could, I celebrated birthdays with them. Go to family graduations. He had also enjoyed vacations with whoever he could.

“We lost our first brother in 2015, and I guess because of that, it really pushed him to make sure everyone stayed together a little bit longer,” Taylor Thompson said of her brother Moody.

Another bullet made Thompson the eldest of the remaining brothers on Oct. 3, the night Moody, 29, was shot to death in Wilmington’s Eastlake neighborhood.

“I’m a big sister now,” Thompson said as she prepared for her brother’s services this SaturdayOctober 26. “Now I have to be the glue, the provider and the protector of my younger brothers.”

Moody, so far, is the last person shot and killed in Delaware in 2024, a year that continues to see a drop in the number of people injured by gunshots compared to previous years. This year, however, there has been a slight increase in people dying from gun-related injuries.

There has been a 36.6% drop in the number of people shot from Jan. 1 to Oct. 24 since 2020, the year Delaware experienced the most shootings. While the first 298 days of the year have seen a 43% drop in people killed by gun violence since Delaware’s homicide record in 2021, there has been a 31% increase in the number of fatal shootings in recent three years.

Gun violence in Delaware also affected Moody, his sister told Delaware Online/The News Journal.

“Literally every month he has lost a friend, a cousin or someone very close to him,” Thompson said. “And you could tell he was suffering from it. It created a depression inside him that no matter what could cure it.”

While most of the shootings occurred in Wilmington, the state’s largest city, Thompson said gun violence is a Delaware problem that is going unchecked.

“I don’t want to be a part of this community anymore,” he said, adding that he is considering moving out of state. “I no longer want to be part of the State. The State has taken a lot from me.”

Dahmiere ‘Ay’ Moody

While Moody faced several challenges, including growing up in the foster system, he didn’t let it stop him, according to those who knew him.

Moody wrestled and played football at Howard Technology High School, his sister said. He also found joy in video games, music, action movies, and comedy.

But his family was his greatest interest, Thompson said.

For example, the youngest brother was graduating from high school in June.

“And Miere was the one who approached all the brothers to get us together and attend this graduation,” he said, adding that he was the one the other brothers contacted when something was needed.

“What one of us didn’t have, our brother could give us,” he said.

This included finding a way to pay his utility bill after his electricity was turned off earlier this year.

Friendship, love, potential.

Moody was quiet at first, some who knew him said. But once it was opened, it illuminated any room it was in.

“He was like a big bright light,” said Eric Pichalski, who met Moody through Thompson.

Pichalski, volunteer coordinator for Habitat for Humanity of New Castle County, said Moody did everything he could for everyone he knew, especially his family.

“What Miere showed the world was the love and friendship of other people,” Pichalski said. “And I just want to continue that in his honor.”

After leaving the foster care system, Moody was looking for something to do and went to Bright Spot Farms, a nonprofit urban farm operated by West End Neighborhood House. There he met Mike McCafferty, who at the time was the director of the urban farm project.

Further: Bright hopes rise in Wilmington

Bright Spot had a greenhouse and a field where participants (all young adults who had left the foster care system) grew poinsettias, annuals, and vegetables that they sold.

Moody was involved in all of that, McCafferty said.

“He was a pretty good worker,” McCafferty said. “He was one of those kids who just absorbed what he was learning.”

If he had been able to go to college, Moody would have been in a good situation, McCafferty believed.

“He was that smart,” he said.

McCafferty was saddened to learn of Moodys’ death, not only because his life was taken but because of the potential that was gone.

“There are certain kids who think, ‘Okay. You’ll make it even if life didn’t deal you a good hand to begin with,'” he said. “I really thought he had the smarts. Not just street smarts, but just a smart kid who could survive in life.”

Carrying a weapon after violence

Moody’s older brother, Quiaire Nesmith, was shot on June 23, 2015. He died five days later.

Further: 24-year-old man jailed for Wilmington murder

The fatal shooting worried Moody so much that shortly afterward, Thompson said he got a gun.

“He always, always traveled with protection,” she said. “Why? Because we lost our brother in 2015.”

He added that Moody had been staying blocks from where his older brother was shot in 2015.

The decision to carry a gun would add to his troubles a few years later, when he ran into legal trouble: the only criminal incident he was associated with was found during searches in Delaware Superior Court and the Delaware Court of Common Pleas.

After a fight with his then-girlfriend, in which police brought her home in the early hours of June 4, 2018, Moody went to her home, kicked in the front door and threw a rock through a front window.

He then attacked a woman inside the house. Court records obtained by Delaware Online/The News Journal redacted the victim’s identity.

Moody fled the scene, but was found later that morning by police, who searched his vehicle and found a gun hidden in it, according to court documents. The gun was not used in the assault, but one of the nine charges filed against him included carrying a concealed deadly weapon.

Thompson, who said Moody never provided details about the incident, did not excuse his brother’s actions other than to say he understood why he carried a gun with him.

“I 100% understand that he never wants to be without a gun,” she said. “Because when you live in a state like this, you don’t want to be without one.”

Moody pleaded guilty to three offenses and was sentenced to five years in prison plus probation. Carrying a concealed deadly weapon was one of the charges dropped in exchange for his guilty plea.

the aftermath

Wilmington police have said little about the shooting, other than that Moody was fatally wounded around 7:20 p.m. while in the 100 block of W. 30th St. on October 3. Police are asking anyone with information to contact Detective James Rook at (302) 576-3621.

Thompson, whose accounts of that night come from the street, said his brother was outside his girlfriend’s house when someone approached him and shot him in the stomach: “We’re all confused and angry because I don’t have answers.”

Further: 3 Shots, 1 Fatal, Less Than 12 Hours Apart in Separate Wilmington Shootings

Emotions and questions about what happened to the gunman are other sides of gun violence that only those involved understand, Pichalski said. Many relatives of the victims struggle between anger and the desire to wander the streets in search of the killer.

“They want clarification on something that unfortunately will not happen,” he said. “That’s what’s so unfortunate. Something that happens so quickly, but it’s all the consequences, everything that follows is so much more exhausting than the initial event sometimes.”

Send tips or story ideas to Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or [email protected].