ELKTON, Md. — It was just before five o’clock in the morning on November 30th of last year when the man shown in these surveillance photos entered the 7-Eleven store across the street from the Elkton Police Department and shot and killed 34-year-old Brenda Duncan.
Detective Sergeant Ron Odom describes what happened.
“Goes in there like he’s going to buy some things,” recounted Odom. “When he gets to the counter, our victim, Miss Duncan, walks up to check him out. He produces a handgun. She gets scared and proceeds to run to the back of the store to escape and he, essentially, executed her, because he didn’t like the way she responded.”
Based on tips and street cameras, investigators determined the suspect was 22-year-old Sharif McCormick of Wilmington, Delaware, and he had walked to the store that morning from a location about seven blocks away.
Police later learned McCormick had been staying with his mother in her home on East Main Street in Elkton---using it as a base to commit similar armed robberies in Delaware.
They located his clothing from the shooting in the house and the gun used in the killing in a storage building on the property, but McCormick was gone.
They have since learned on the same day that he allegedly shot Duncan, someone shot him.
“He pops up in Delaware, gets into some kind of issue over there where he ends up getting shot himself, ends up in Christiana Hospital,” said Odom. “And because he’s in the State of Delaware, a gunshot victim, the police are called and he ends up getting checked and come to find out, he has several warrants in the State of Delaware.”
Police are now awaiting McCormick’s extradition, which can’t happen quickly enough for Duncan’s family, and they all share a common, haunting question---Why he had to kill her?
“He could have turned around, and he could have left the store,” said Odom. “Then it would be maybe a felony assault, because he pointed a gun at her, but he simply executed her in that store for no reason.”
