Suffolk man charged with second-degree murder in connection with death of woman

Published 1:53 pm Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A Suffolk man was arrested Tuesday morning and is in Western Tidewater Regional Jail in connection with the shooting death of a city woman earlier this week at a home on Nansemond Parkway.

Police Chief Al Chandler confirmed the arrest in a Tuesday interview.

The man, John Dontrel Harris, 31, has been charged with second-degree murder, armed burglary, malicious wounding, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and maliciously shooting or stabbing someone with the intent to kill. 

Email newsletter signup

Harris, who had been considered armed and dangerous, was booked early Tuesday morning into the jail. 

The Suffolk 911 Center received a call at 4:39 a.m. Sunday about shots fired inside a residence in the 1000 block of Nansemond Parkway, north of Portsmouth Boulevard and south of the U.S. Route 58 Bypass. 

Responding officers found the victim, Delyna Hall, 24, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Police did not release other details about the incident, which was the city’s third shooting death in eight days, including two in separate incidents near downtown. Two people were killed the previous weekend in separate incidents near downtown, though police said they did not suspect foul play in the early morning Aug. 22 shooting in the 800 block of West Washington Street.

Visitation for Hall is from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday at T.E. Cooke-Overton Funeral Home. A funeral service is at noon Saturday at Balm Church East Campus on East Washington Street.

Ten people have been killed and 19 injured in shootings this year in the city.