On the evening of January 14, 1991, Debra Milner was tending bar at the Hi-Way Inn, a combination bar and liquor store on Governor Printz Boulevard near Wilmington, Delaware. While she tended the bar, 65-year-old Philip Seifert was manning the counter of the package goods store, accessible through a doorway to the bar.
At around 9:20 p.m., Milner saw a Black man about 6 feet tall, in his mid-20s, and wearing a red flannel shirt, come into the bar, look around, and leave without making a purchase. At about 10:20 p.m., Seifert was in the bar when he and Milner heard the bell ring on the door to the front entrance to the liquor store, indicating that someone had entered. Seifert left the bar to wait on the customer, while Milner answered the telephone.
While she was on the telephone, Milner heard the bell ring again and assumed that the customer had left the liquor store. She later told the police that she then heard the bell ring a third time followed by a noise that sounded like a firecracker. Assuming someone was playing a prank, Milner walked toward the passageway to the liquor store to investigate. Through the passageway, she saw Seifert slumped across the counter. She then heard a gunshot and saw blood around Seifert. Fearing for her safety, Milner ran and hid in a room near the kitchen. Later, she ran back through the bar and out the front door where she saw a customer she recognized, George Hummell, making a telephone call.
Hummell, a machinist inspector employed by Amtrak, was on his way to work and planned to stop at the Hi-Way Inn to cash a check. A regular customer who knew Milner and Seifert, Hummell was waiting to make a left turn into the Inn’s parking lot when he saw two men leave the liquor store. Hummell saw the shorter of the two men return to the store while the other ran across the parking lot. Not long after, the man came back out of the liquor store, ran across the road, and got into a black Volkswagen in a parking lot across the street. The other man ran down the sidewalk and disappeared.
Hummell walked into the bar area, which was empty. He called out the names of several employees. When there was no response, he walked into the liquor store where he saw Seifert, who was an amputee, seated on a stool with his head on the counter. He was bleeding from a head wound. Hummell called 911.
When the police arrived, Seifert was lying on his back on the floor behind the counter. The cash register drawer was open and approximately $30 had been stolen. Seifert was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. He had been shot three times, once in the neck and twice in the head.
Hummell said the man who returned to the store and then left again was Black, about 5 feet 8 inches tall. The other man also was Black and about 6 feet tall.
Delaware State Police Detective Edward Mayfield was the lead investigator. At one point, he resorted to handing out $20 bills on the street in the hope of getting information. Eventually, someone gave a handwritten note to a Hi-Way Inn employee that said the perpetrators were “Marlo,” an alleged drug dealer who lived on East 28th Street in Wilmington, and another man, “Tee.”
Mayfield determined that “Marlo” was 18-year-old Jermaine Marlo Wright, while “Tee” was the “street name” of 23-year-old Lorinzo Dixon.
A few days after the shooting, Wilmington police, working with Mayfield, obtained a warrant for Wright’s arrest. The warrant was not based on Wright being a suspect in the Hi-Way Inn crime, but rather as a suspect in two other unrelated shootings. In one, the victim was a young woman who had been shot in the leg in a park. She had described the shooter merely as a young Black man. The other victim was Emil Watson, a boy who had been hit in the foot by a bullet that had ricocheted off a wall. Watson had refused to cooperate with police, but Mayfield later asserted that an informant had named Wright as the person who fired the bullet that struck Watson.
On January 30, 1991, Wright was arrested at his home shortly after 6 a.m. The home was searched, but nothing linking him to the Hi-Way Inn shooting was recovered. By 9 a.m., Wright was in a police interrogation room at the Wilmington police department with one wrist handcuffed to his chair. Questioning began around noon. Wilmington Police Detective Robert Merrill spent 45 minutes questioning Wright about the Watson shooting. Wright denied involvement. Then, Wilmington Police Detective Robert Moser entered and questioned Wright about the shooting in the park. Mayfield was listening in through a speaker system.
For the next several hours, until about 7 p.m., Moser was alone with Wright and the interrogation focused on the Hi-Way Inn shooting. At 7 p.m., Mayfield entered the interrogation room after hearing Wright make a statement admitting involvement in the crime. Beginning at 7:34 p.m., Wright gave a statement that was recorded on video. Wright admitted being the shooter, although his account was pockmarked with facts inconsistent with the crime.
Wright was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, first-degree conspiracy, and possession of a weapon during a felony.
On March 14, 1991, Dixon was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, first-degree conspiracy, and possession of a weapon during a felony.
The men were granted separate trials. The prosecution said it would seek the death penalty.
In Delaware, defendants accused of capital crimes were not entitled to bail without a “proof positive” hearing. In April 1991, a proof positive hearing was held in Wright’s case to determine whether he could qualify for bail.
At the hearing, Detective Mayfield testified that Milner, the bartender, had said she heard two voices in the liquor store section prior to the shooting. That, however, was not true. As Wright’s defense team would later point out, Milner never said she heard any voices.
The claim about Milner hearing voices was necessary to substantiate portions of Wright’s statement in which Wright claimed that he shot Seifert after Dixon threatened to kill him. In the statement, Wright had claimed that Dixon was shouting, “Do it! Do it now! If you don’t do it, I’ll do you.”
The defense later argued that by falsely testing that Milner heard voices, Mayfield eliminated a contradiction created by Wright’s statement.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Wright was denied bond.
In August 1992, Wright went to trial in New Castle County Superior Court. The defense contended that Wright’s confession was false. Evidence showed that Wright had heroin in his pocket and surreptitiously used it during the interrogation when he was allowed to use the bathroom. The heroin had been discovered when he was searched prior to entering the jail after the interrogation ended and his statement had been recorded.
Wright’s attorney, Jack Willard, said in his opening statement to the jury: “He was capable of having ideas put in his mind and spell them right back out as if they were his own.”
Milner and Hummell both testified about the events on the night of the shooting. Neither were able to identify Wright or Dixon.
The recording of Wright’s statement was shown to the jury. There was no forensic evidence connecting Wright or Dixon to the crime.
Four witnesses testified for the defense that they were with Wright shooting pool from 7:30 p.m. until about midnight on the night of the crime. Dixon’s girlfriend, Catherine Green, testified that she and Dixon went to dinner and a movie that night. She said they saw two friends, both of whom also testified to seeing Green and Dixon that night.
Green said she and Dixon went to a bar afterward and that Dixon ordered an exotic drink. The bartender testified and recalled that in January 1991, he had served a Black couple and that he had to look up in a book how to make the drink that the man had ordered.
The defense also called three witnesses who said they saw a man near the Hi-Way Inn that night who was acting strangely. That man was not Wright or Dixon, the witnesses said.
Antonio Jones testified for the defense that one of his friends, Kevin Jamison, had confessed that he and his cousin, Norman Curtis, had committed the crime. Jamison also was called as a witness. He admitted he was a friend of Jones, but denied he had confessed to the crime. Asked about his relationship with Curtis, Jamison said he saw Curtis “now and then,” but “not often.”
The defense presented testimony that Wright was a heroin addict, that he was high when taken into custody, and that he had heroin in his possession that had not been found until after his statement. The defense cited Wright’s bizarre behavior during the interrogation that included writing words in tiny script on pieces of paper and then eating the paper.
Other witnesses also testified that Wright made a living as a drug dealer. The defense contended that he had plenty of money and had no reason to be involved in a $30 robbery.
Dr. Robert Maslansky testified for the defense that Wright’s behavior on the video was consistent with heroin intoxication. He testified that heroin creates “a significant loss of the capacity to feel emotions that are very negative” and a “singular indifference to the consequences” in situations that pose “tremendous threats to ... wellbeing.”
Dr. Maslansky said that anxiety is so diminished “that you enter this very threatening situation in a way that you are just not particularly emotionally involved in it any longer.”
Asked if Wright was susceptible to suggestions, Dr. Maslansky said, “I guess if you are a suggestible person to begin with…I would say it does leave you open to suggestion.”
Wright testified and denied involvement in the crime. He said he was playing pool with friends that night until about 11:45 p.m., and then went to a friend’s house until going home after 2:30 a.m. He said that on the morning of his arrest, he had been up all night using heroin, had barely slept during the prior two days, and that he was still high when taken into custody.
He described being high as “floating in your own world…like in a dream.”
Wright said he falsely confessed because “I wanted them to get off my back. ... I didn’t listen to what they said. I didn’t really care anyway…I was in my own world. They just kept asking me over and over. I’d tell them anything.”
In rebuttal, the prosecution presented Gerald Samuels, who testified that he had been in jail with Wright prior to the trial. Samuels said that Wright admitted he shot the clerk. Samuels was a surprise witness–the prosecution had not previously informed the defense of his existence or his testimony even though the prosecution had known what Samuels would say at least a week earlier. Samuels testified that the prosecution had made no promises to him in return for his testimony.
Wright took the witness stand again and denied confessing to Samuels. Wright said he had told Samuels that he would shoot Samuels if he didn’t stop asking him questions.
On August 26, 1992, the jury convicted Wright of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, conspiracy, and possession of a deadly weapon during a felony. Following a sentencing hearing, the jury voted to impose the death penalty. In October 1992, New Castle County Superior Court Judge Susan Del Pesco sentenced Wright to death.
On November 5, 1992, Dixon pled guilty to first-degree robbery and possession of a deadly weapon during a felony. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In November 1993, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld Wright’s conviction and sentence. In 1994, Judge Del Pesco vacated Wright’s death sentence, ruling that his defense had failed to adequately investigate and present mitigating factors, such as Wright's psychological background and educational history, which could have influenced the jury’s vote to impose the death penalty. Following a new penalty hearing in 1995, Wright was again sentenced to death.
For the next several years, Wright continued to challenge his conviction.
In 2000, Wright filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In 2009, he filed a fourth post-conviction petition and requested that the federal habeas case be put on hold pending a resolution of the fourth petition. That motion was granted. In the fall of 2009, New Castle County Superior Court Judge John Parkins Jr. held several days of hearings.
During the hearings, four physicians testified to the effects of heroin use and heroin withdrawal, as well as evidence that Wright had a verbal IQ score of 62, indicating significant disability, particularly as relating to understanding Miranda warnings. Wright was described as “extremely suggestible.”
Dr. Solomon Fulero, a professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Law, testified that there was evidence of several risk factors for a false confession, including Wright’s sleep deprivation, his heroin use, his withdrawal, the length of the interrogation, Wright’s suggestibility, and the police use of the Reid Technique, a method of interrogation that had been cited as coercive and the cause of numerous false confessions.
Dr. Fulero noted that some of the information Wright provided was incorrect and that information that was correct was already known by the police at the time.
Retired Washington, D.C. police Detective James Trainum testified as an expert on false confessions. He doubted the reliability of the confession for several reasons, including Wright’s young age, his low verbal comprehension, his heroin intoxication, and the length of the interrogation. He said that on the video, Wright “appeared to be guessing a lot.”
Trainum noted that during the interrogation by Detective Moser, Detective Mayfield opened the door and declared, “I’m from the Delaware State Police and you’re gonna tell me what I want to know.” Trainum said that tactic made him “cringe” because it implied that “bad things” were going to happen unless Wright confessed.
Ultimately, Trainum said the confession “got almost all the key facts wrong.”
In March 2009, Samuels provided an affidavit in which he recanted his trial testimony that the prosecution had not promised him any benefits. He said that he understood that he would get a sentence reduction or be sent to a work-release program in return for his testimony. The defense located a letter written to the trial prosecutor one month after Wright was convicted that said Samuels had asked him “to inquire as to when you plan to honor your agreement to recommend a ‘substantial assistance’ sentence reduction and a transfer…”
The defense also presented evidence from several new witnesses who testified that over the years, Jamison had confessed to committing the crime with Curtis. One of the witnesses said that Jamison’s brother was particularly burdened by the knowledge that Jamison and Curtis had sent an innocent man to death row.
During the hearings, Dixon testified and maintained his innocence. He said he agreed to the no-contest plea after seeing that Wright’s family had spent more than $50,000 on attorney fees. Dixon said that after his public defender told him he would be convicted and be sentenced to death, “I took the plea.” By that time, Dixon had been released on parole after serving more than nine years in prison. He had developed diabetes in prison and had one foot amputated prior to release.
At the same hearing, the prosecutor who offered the plea agreement to Dixon, Ferris Wharton, testified that he had virtually no evidence against Dixon. Wharton said that the plea agreement was “something that I thought was the best resolution I could get without having been put to trial, and I didn’t want a trial with Dixon because…without Jermaine Wright’s testimony, there was not any evidence to convict him.”
On January 3, 2012, based on the evidence presented during the hearings, Judge Parkins vacated Wright’s convictions and ordered a new trial. Judge Parkins ruled that the prosecution had failed to disclose to Wright’s defense that an attempted robbery took place at the Brandywine Village Liquor Store, which was less than two miles away from the Hi-Way Inn. That attempt occurred less than an hour prior to the Hi–Way Inn robbery. The suspects resembled the description of the two men seen fleeing from the Hi-Way Inn and the weapon displayed at the Brandywine Village store resembled the gun used in the Hi-Way Inn shooting.
The judge noted that one of the perpetrators of the Brandywine attempt was described as wearing a red coat–which resembled the description that Milner, the bartender at the Hi-Way Inn, gave of the man who came into the bar, looked around, and left shortly before the shooting.
Judge Parkins also ruled that Wright had not knowingly and intelligently waived his Miranda rights and as a result the police had obtained the confession through defective warnings, noting that when the police had first given Wright his warnings, Detective Mayfield said Wright had a right to an attorney, and that if he could not afford one, one would be appointed “if the state feels you’re diligent and needs [sic] one.”
Although the prosecution argued that Mayfield had said “indigent,” as the warning actually reads, Judge Parkins noted that Mayfield had made the same mistake when advising Dixon, Wright’s co-defendant, of his Miranda rights after Dixon was arrested.
“Taken altogether, the Court has no confidence in the outcome of the trial,” Judge Parkins wrote.
Judge Parkins denied the remainder of Wright’s claims. The claims denied were that the jury was improperly instructed on the felony murder rule; that Wright was “actually innocent”; that his confession was involuntary; that all of Wright’s prior postconviction counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel; that the jury should have been instructed that the aggravating factors must outweigh the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt; and that Wright’s conviction should be vacated because of the failure to disclose the information relating to Samuels.
Judge Parkins then held another proof positive hearing. Based on his finding that the confession was unreliable, Judge Parkins said he would grant bail to Wright.
The prosecution appealed and, in May 2013, the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Wright’s convictions, ruling that the evidence that was not disclosed regarding the Brandywine Village robbery attempt would not have changed the outcome of the trial. The Court also ruled that Wright was procedurally barred from challenging his confession and that he was not entitled to bail.
On remand, the defense asked Judge Parkins to reconsider the claims that he had previously rejected. Judge Parkins re-affirmed the denial of these claims, and Wright’s conviction and death sentence were reinstated.
The defense appealed. In May 2014, the Delaware Supreme Court vacated Wright’s conviction and sentence. The Court held that the prosecution’s failure to disclose Samuels’s criminal record, as well as the failure to disclose evidence relating to Kevin Jamison, the man the defense claimed had confessed to committing the crime with his cousin, was sufficient to grant Wright a new trial.
The Court said that the prosecution had failed to disclose that Samuels had agreed to testify against a co-defendant in a drug case six months before he testified at Wright’s trial.
Regarding Jamison, the Court noted that one month before Wright’s trial, Jamison and Curtis had been charged as co-defendants in a robbery. Jamison had been arrested on August 19, 1992 for that robbery, two days after he testified at Wright’s trial and while Wright’s trial was still underway. The commission of a crime with Curtis would have undermined Jamison’s trial testimony that he only associated with Curtis intermittently, and it tended to bolster Wright’s claim that Jamison and Curtis were the joint perpetrators of Seifert’s murder.
The Court held that the “cumulative effect” of the failure to disclose the attempted robbery at Brandywine Village, along with the evidence relating to Samuels and Jamison, was sufficient to grant Wright a new trial. The totality of the evidence “alters the calculus on Wright’s confession, his alibi defense, and the identity of the gunmen at the Hi–Way Inn,” the Court ruled. “That evidence cuts across multiple, substantive bases supporting the jury’s conviction and would have permitted Wright to attack the State’s case from every angle.”
Regarding the undisclosed evidence, the Court concluded, “This evidence, together with the [ Brandywine Village Liquor Store] attempted robbery, could have been used to show that the State arrested the wrong suspect.”
On remand, the defense sought to suppress Wright’s statement, arguing that it was coerced and false, citing the testimony from the medical and false confession experts.
On January 30, 2015, Judge Parkins ordered the confession suppressed. “Wright did not receive warnings which even arguably satisfied Miranda,” the judge declared. “The Miranda rule is not a code of police conduct, but rather is a prophylactic rule designed to protect core constitutional rights. There is only one remedy here—Wright’s confession must be suppressed and the State cannot use that confession during its case-in-chief.”
Later that day, Wright was released on bond, pending a retrial.
The prosecution appealed.
On January 11, 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court reversed that ruling and held that the confession was properly obtained. The Court held that prior to Wright’s trial, Judge Del Pesco had denied a defense motion to suppress the confession, ruling that Wright had been given his Miranda warnings three times and that his waiver was voluntary.
On January 15, 2016, Wright was ordered back to prison.
On September 12, 2016, on the eve of his retrial, Wright pled no-contest to a charge of second-degree murder and was sentenced to the maximum term of 20 years in prison. He was released immediately since he had already served more than 24 years in custody since his arrest in 1991. The release was, at that time, the culmination of decades of work by his legal team, James Moreno and his colleagues at the Philadelphia Capital Habeas Unit and Herbert Mondros, who served as local Delaware counsel.
In 2024, the Delaware Legislature enacted a wrongful conviction compensation statute that went into effect on June 30, 2025.
In December 2025, Moreno and Mondros filed a 135-page claim seeking $20 million in compensation for Wright from the state of Delaware. The claim detailed the tortured history of the case and the impact on Wright. “For virtually the entirety of that time, he was confined to a ten-by-seven foot cement and steel cell, emerging for only three hours a week–locked alone for twenty-four hours, four days a week, and twenty-three hours a day for the remaining three days,” the claim said.
Upon his release, Wright was diagnosed with chronic PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder. By the time of the filing of the claim, Wright was reported to have improved significantly. He had worked a construction job for eight years and also maintained a small lawn-maintenance business.
On July 23, 2026, New Castle County Superior Court Judge Calvin Scott granted Wright a certificate of innocence and ordered Wright’s case expunged. The state of Delaware and Wright’s lawyers settled the compensation claim for an undisclosed amount.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-19-2026
