On the morning of September 30, 2018, a worker at an Auto Zone on Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, Queens, found 26-year-old Darryl Whitfield in the back of a gray BMW in the store’s parking lot. He was unconscious and unresponsive with a single gunshot wound to the head; emergency medical services pronounced him dead. Whitfield was a father of three.

Detectives used surveillance footage to reconstruct the night. Video showed Whitfield at Whitestone Lanes on the night of September 30, 2018, leaving the bowling alley with 35-year-old Charles Williams in a gray BMW around 4 a.m. Investigators tracked the vehicle’s movements from the bowling alley to a gas station and then to the Auto Zone lot where Whitfield’s body was later found. A second man, 30-year-old Careem Holder, was arrested two days after the discovery for possession of a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver used in the killing and for destroying evidence; Holder was later convicted on weapons possession and evidence-tampering charges.

Williams reportedly fled to California and was located by the Fugitive Task Force; a warrant for his arrest was issued March 10, 2021, and he was apprehended in Sacramento on March 26, 2021, then extradited back to Queens in June 2021 to face a four-count indictment including second-degree murder and weapon charges. Does anyone have information about Whitfield’s movements that night or knew him personally?