On April 11, 2023 just before 12:15 p.m., gunfire erupted in the 200 block of Capen Street near Enfield Street in Hartford. Officers found 29-year-old Michael Starks of Hartford walking outside a small market; he had been shot multiple times, was unresponsive, and was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. His killing was the city’s fifth homicide that year.

Hartford Police canvassed the large scene for physical and video evidence and said they collected what they described as good evidence that could identify a suspect. It was not made clear whether Starks knew his attacker or what the motive might have been. Authorities sought help from the public in the investigation.

On April 22, 2023, police arrested 27-year-old Paul Lorenzo Downer on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with Starks’s death; Downer was held on $2 million bond and was scheduled for arraignment in Superior Court in Hartford. Did anyone in the neighborhood see or hear anything that morning that could help investigators?