He was 19 years old and just getting started.
Ethan Hillman had graduated from Smyrna High School the year before. In August 2025, he enrolled in a software engineering bootcamp through Code Differently, a Delaware-based program that trains young people for tech careers. He was working his way up. Learning to code. Building a future most kids his age can only daydream about.
By the spring of 2026, Ethan had landed a six-month IT internship at ChristianaCare's Wilmington Hospital. Not clinical work — he was in the non-clinical information technology program, the kind of job that gets your foot in the door at a major health system. He was 19 and already on a path most people take a decade to find.
On the morning of Tuesday, June 16, Ethan was working a project in the basement administrative area of Wilmington Hospital with two other interns from the same program. One of them was Jayden Ellis, also 19. The other was John Wallace-Bey, 23, from New Castle.
That morning, Wallace-Bey got into a verbal disagreement with Ethan and Jayden. It wasn't enough to get anyone in trouble. Wallace-Bey told a senior IT employee he wanted to leave for the day, and they let him go. He wasn't fired. He wasn't disciplined. He wasn't sent home as punishment. He was expected back at work the next day.
Instead, around 3 p.m. that afternoon, Wallace-Bey came back. He used his valid employee badge to walk through the employee entrance — the same background screening every ChristianaCare hire goes through, and he passed it. Wilmington Hospital had metal detectors at the visitor entrances. The employee entrances had none.
He found Ethan and Jayden in the basement where they'd been assigned that day. He confronted them. Then he pulled out a .38 caliber handgun and shot each of them once.
Ethan Hillman, 19 years old, a kid from Smyrna who was learning to write code and building a life, died. Jayden Ellis was critically wounded. He survived.
After the shooting, Wallace-Bey walked out through the hospital's main entrance, made his way to the Wilmington train station, and boarded a SEPTA train to Philadelphia. The hospital went on lockdown. Dozens of city, county, state, and federal officers swarmed the building. Staff walked out with their hands in the air. By 6 p.m., cars were slowly trickling out of the parking garage.
That evening, investigators tracked a Toyota RAV4 connected to Wallace-Bey using license plate readers. Officers and FBI agents closed in near North 9th Street and Lindley Avenue in Philadelphia's Olney neighborhood around 9:30 p.m. They arrested him as he tried to catch a rideshare.
The people who knew Ethan remember him for his kindness, his dedication, and the energy he brought into every room. A bright, hardworking young man. A beloved son. A trusted coworker. A friend. Someone whose presence made a difference — not just in what he was building for himself, but in the quiet ways he cared for the people around him.
On June 30, about 30 people gathered at the First Unitarian Church in Talleyville for a vigil. Healthcare workers. Violence prevention advocates. Community members. They bowed their heads in a moment of silence for Ethan and for Jayden, who was still recovering. A medical director spoke about what it does to people when violence walks into a hospital — a place people go to heal. "It shatters the familiar and substitutes it with the strange."
A Delaware grand jury indicted Wallace-Bey on seven felony charges: first-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder, first-degree reckless endangering, carrying a concealed deadly weapon, and three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He pleaded not guilty. His trial is set for June 2027 before Judge Charles E. Butler. He's being held at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna. If convicted of first-degree murder, he faces mandatory life in prison.
The gun was never found. As of the last report, investigators still hadn't located it. They also never found a criminal record or anything else that would have prohibited him from owning one.
Ethan Hillman was 19. He had graduated high school, finished a coding bootcamp, and earned his way into a hospital IT program most adults would be proud of. That's what was in that basement on June 16. Not a headline. Not a statistic. A kid from Smyrna with a future.
Brought to you by Team Murphy Media.
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