On the night of May 31, 2017, firefighters responding to a third-floor apartment fire on Gleason Avenue in the Bronx found 45-year-old Noel Farrow dead in the kitchen. The fire was determined to be incendiary, but investigators concluded the blaze did not cause his death; Farrow had been fatally shot in the head. Authorities believed the fire was set to conceal the homicide.

Farrow had been living in the apartment for only a couple of months and had a prior conviction linked to a cocaine distribution ring. The NYPD homicide investigation focused early on a man seen on surveillance leaving the building around the time of the incident — described as a Black man with a beard, wearing a baseball cap, a waist-length jacket, and blue jeans.

An arrest was later made: Rodney Spratley was taken into custody in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in August 2023 and extradited to the Bronx on charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon, with an alleged motive of robbery for drugs and money. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York reviewed the case for capital prosecution but filed a letter in October 2023 declining to seek the death penalty; proceedings were set to continue later in 2023. Anyone with information about Noel Farrow, the suspect seen on video, or the events that night is asked to come forward.