Second Chances and Deadly Consequences: The Darnell Collins Story

A series of vicious cycles. They can usually be found littering the lives of convicts, addicts and misfortunate people trapped in the conditions they were born into. But one life in particular would be marred by these vicious cycles and result in a crime spree much unlike any other.

His name was Mwanza Kamau, otherwise known as Darnell Collins, and he was born on April 5th, 1962. His father was killed in combat during the Vietnam War, leaving Darnell in the sole care of his mother.

But soon after, Darnell would find a new role model or role models to shape his life around: the other inmates in the juvenile detention center he’d just been sent to. Sometimes referred to as con-college, Darnell didn’t show up at the steps of juvie with only petty crimes under his belt. He was there for assault, shoplifting, larceny and attempted larceny and it was here that Darnell’s life turned a dark corner he never seemed able to come back from.

Darnell was in and out of juvie his entire childhood and when he grew too old to be allowed back in, he stood at a crossroads. The next time he was caught breaking the law, he would go to prison… adult prison… a place far harsher than any institution Darnell had been to before.

Now an adult, Darnell attempted to pay the bills by buying pictures and paintings in New York and selling them on the streets of Atlantic City, where he’d grown up. Maybe there had been a future for him in this once; a future where Darnell would never need to break the law again. 

Maybe it was simply that Darnell had no idea how to behave as a law-abiding citizen.

He was arrested again in 1984 and this time he had 6 charges against him. Convictions for armed robbery and burglary saw him sentenced to prison for 20 years. Ten years later, Darnell paroled out; now officially institutionalized.. like you hear the characters in Shawshank Redemption talk about, and simply waiting for his next brush with the law. 

It came only 6 months later in an event that will forever be deemed as the point of no return.

In the summer of 1994, Darnell tested positive for drugs which was a direct violation of his parole. If his parole officer had followed the law, Darnell should have been sent back to prison to serve the rest of his sentence.

But his parole officer gave Darnell something that would change so many lives irreversibly: a second chance.

It was shortly after Darnell came a hair’s breadth from going away to prison again that he met April Gates, a 30 year-old blackjack dealer at the Trump Castle Casino Resort. It was like the lights had come on for Darnell. What he saw in April was a future and a home; one that he was seemingly incapable of treating right. He grew violent and possessive and he was slipping back into a life of crime.

And April had more to think about than just her feelings for Darnell. She lived with her young son in her mother’s house in Atlantic City, and she simply couldn’t risk bringing in a life of criminality and danger into their home.

April broke up with Darnell and Darnell was furious.

He began stalking April. He’d show up at her workplace, her home, and follow her on the streets. Eventually, April had enough to get a restraining order against Darnell and that ticked Darnell off even further. The harassment continued and, not seeing any other way out of her situation, April called Darnell’s parole officer and reported that Darnell had violated the conditions of his parole yet again.

Darnell quickly got wind of his impending arrest and in his mind there was only one person to blame for his fate: April Gates.

Enraged and determined to see justice done, Darnell rode his bike over to April’s home on the night of June 17th, 1995, just two days after April’s restraining order went into effect.

Darnell wanted April, but what he got was her 51 year-old mother Shirley Gates.

Shirley was home alone when Darnell burst through the door of her house, and she was alone when Darnell tied her up. He then shot her twice, once above the ear and once below, with a gun that was believed to be Shirley’s very own.

But Darnell stole one more thing from Shirley that night; her car parked outside, and with it, he went on the prowl for the person he was really after. April was at a birthday party only about 3 blocks away, and had no idea what had already happened to her mother when she spotted an uninvited guest.

April was sitting in a chair and called to Darnell only for him to shoot her then and there. The shot hit April in her head, but she was still able to stand up and stumble towards him. Darnell then shot her twice in the stomach, sending April to the ground while he shouted: “Why’d you tell?”

By then, the investigators presumed that April was already dead and couldn’t have answered Darnell.

Darnell then fled the scene and raced towards the Star Motel on Black Horse Pike, where he made a quick pit stop. Many believe that what Darnell was after at the motel was what had fuelled this sudden burst of violent and deadly activity to begin with, and that it was the very same thing that had soured his relationship with April in the first place: drugs.

Living at the Star Motel was 41 year-old William Dawson, otherwise known as Darnell’s drug dealer. William had been there about a week with his 27 year-old girlfriend Stacey Smith and her 4 year-old son when Darnell came looking for more. 

It’s unclear if Darnell got what he was after in that motel room that night, but there would be no disputing what he did right after he arrived. Darnell shot William in the chest, killing him almost instantly, and then he shot Stacey through the neck. All that was left now was Stacey’s young son.

For whatever reason, Darnell spared the child before fleeing the motel in William’s car, probably thinking that he had left no credible witnesses behind. 

But Stacey fought. Despite being shot in the neck, she survived long enough to be rushed to the hospital where she later recovered from her wounds and lived to be reunited with her son.

Darnell, however, had no way of knowing that Stacey was alive as he rocketed down the streets, searching for his next fix.

Presumably still under the influence of narcotics and running low, Darnell pulled into a gas station in Haddon Township the very next day. He got 10 dollar’s worth of gas, picked up some orange juice, chips, and a chocolate bar, and approached the counter. There instead of paying for his goods, he whipped out his gun and demanded money instead.

“Give me your money,” the attendant remembers Darnell saying. “I had 80 or a 100 dollars in my pocket. I gave that to him. He pushed me with his gun in my back. Then I said ‘No money in the cash register.’ I pushed his gun and he hit me in my head and my face.”

After pistol whipping the attendant, Darnell raided the cash register and stole over 800 dollars.

His actions had put him firmly on the police’s radar, but they still had no idea where Darnell was or where he would strike next. Thinking it’s where he would be headed, units were dispatched to his aunt’s home in Harlem, but it wasn’t until the next day that the authorities would be able to place him anywhere.

Darnell cornered another gas station attendant in the parking lot and demanded money. 38 year-old Jose Escarpetta refused, even with a gun in his face. Darnell retaliated by firing 3 times, killing Jose on the spot. 

He then took off on foot and darted into the elevator of a nearby building. Trapped in there with him, and not knowing who Darnell was, or what he had already done, was 26 year-old computer graphics designer Jeffrey Roork and 54 year-old architect David Roth, who both worked in the building.

As the elevator climbed to the 9th floor, Darnell took out his gun and shot both men in the head. The elevator doors opened up onto a scene of carnage and to Darnell pointing his gun at another potential victim.

“How do I get out of here?” he demanded, and the man on the wrong end of Darnell’s gun guided him towards a freight elevator. The investigators believed that it was only because Darnell was probably out of ammo at this time that he didn’t kill this man or the other witnesses at the scene.

Now back on the streets again, Darnell found his next victim. Not knowing who he was, Norma Acosta took Darnell back to her home where they took drugs and got high together. It was when he was under the influence that Norma said Darnell became paranoid and suspicious about her. He then shot Norma in the head and fled before realising that she had miraculously survived her wounds.

The next were Reverend Robert Gethers and deacon Joseph Johnson, who were fixing a car outside their church. Darnell approached them and demanded money. Reverend Robert handed Darnell about 350 dollars and it was because of this that Darnell claimed that he spared them before taking off in their car.

Two days later, Darnell was in a taxi when something in him snapped all over again. This time it was over a dollar. One literal dollar. 

Darnell wanted to pay 5 dollars for his ride, but the driver wanted 6.

In retaliation for what Darnell deemed to be an offence, he shot the driver Emmanuel Malan in the head during the ride. This time there would be no miraculous recovery. Emmanuel died over a dispute of a dollar.

All of Darnell’s victims were either known to him, like April and Shirley Gates, or were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but within the next few hours of killing Emmanuel, it would be Darnell who found himself tripped up by fate.

A woman concerned over 3 men with guns threatening another woman outside her house called the incident into the police. As the responding officers approached the scene, they spotted Darnell and began to pursue him instead.

Darnell realised that the cops were onto him and began to speed down the streets in another car that he had stolen. He managed to keep ahead of them for about 20 minutes before he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a nearby home. Still determined to get away, Darnell ran from the scene and took cover behind a wall where he and the police got into a shootout.

Seizing an opportunity to get away again, Darnell then got up and ran, and continued to run, making it to a river, where he laid down in the shallows and reloaded his gun. 

The New York Police Commissioner William J Bratton described what happened next. “It was a quick ending to an extraordinarily violent episode,” he said, and what happened was that Darnell was struck fourteen times in the head, neck and torso when he opened fire on the responding officers, and those officers returned fire.

Darnell’s crime spree left seven people dead and three injured; a spree that many believe wouldn’t have happened if Darnell’s parole officer hadn't thought he was doing something good, given him that second chance. The courts agreed and stripped John Goodman of his position and title only about 6 months after these horrific and deadly shootings.