Dwayne Alexander, 42, of Philadelphia, was a high-ranking member of the Shotgun Crips when a dispute involving another gang member escalated into the 2021 kidnapping and killing of the 35-year-old victim, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware.
The dispute began when lower-ranking gang member Kimon Burton-Roberson became involved in a conflict with the Wilmington man during the summer of 2021, prosecutors said.
A group of Shotgun Crips members later forced their way into the man's Wilmington home, beat him with blunt objects, bound his hands behind his back with zip ties, and drove him toward Philadelphia, according to court documents and evidence presented at trial.
The group picked up Alexander near his Philadelphia home before driving the bound victim to an industrial park in Yeadon, Delaware County, prosecutors said.
There, the man was shot in the head with an assault rifle in what federal authorities described as an execution-style killing.
Alexander authorized the killing because of his higher rank within the gang and supplied the assault rifle used to murder the victim, according to prosecutors.
He later helped attempt to cover up the killing, including by returning to the Yeadon industrial park with Burton-Roberson to search for a suppressor that had detached from the murder weapon, federal authorities said.
A federal jury convicted Alexander of kidnapping resulting in death and conspiracy to commit kidnapping on June 5, 2025.
Chief U.S. District Judge Colm F. Connolly sentenced Alexander on Wednesday, Sept. 30, to mandatory life in federal prison.
His sentencing was the last of six imposed against co-conspirators in the case, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
"In his role as a high-ranking member of a street gang, Dwayne Alexander authorized a senseless and depraved crime that stole the life of the victim, a beloved father, son, brother, uncle, and member of the Wilmington community," U.S. Attorney Benjamin L. Wallace said.
The investigation involved the FBI's Delaware Violent Crime and Safe Streets Task Force, Wilmington Police Department, Yeadon Borough Police Department, Pennsylvania State Police, and Delaware Probation and Parole.
The case was prosecuted by Wallace and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle L. Morgan and Kevin P. Pierce.
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