Alleged campus gunman charged

DOVER, Del. - The suspected gunman in a fatal shooting on the Delaware State University campus was indicted Monday on a second-degree murder charge.

The indictment returned by a Kent County grand jury also charges Loyer D. Braden, 18, of East Orange, N.J., with first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangering, and three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison plus 105 years.

Braden initially was charged with attempted murder and other crimes following the Sept. 21 shootings. Prosecutors sought to revise the charges after one victim, Shalita Middleton, 17, died on Oct. 23.

Middleton, a cheerleader and freshman biology major from Washington, was shot in the abdomen. Nathaniel Pugh III, another freshman from Washington, suffered an ankle wound.

Braden is being held on $192,000 cash bail, an amount that more than doubled after Middleton died. His attorney, James Liguori, did not immediately return a message left with his answering service Monday.

Delaware defines second-degree murder as recklessly causing the death of another with "a cruel, wicked and depraved indifference to human life," or negligently causing the death of someone while trying to commit or flee from a felony or attempted felony. The presumptive sentence upon conviction is 15 years.

According to investigators, Braden was involved in a fight with another student three days before the shooting, and the two confronted each other again at a campus cafe on the night of the shooting. Middleton tried to defuse the second altercation.

Investigators said Braden left the cafe shortly after Middleton's group departed, then began shooting at the group as they crossed the campus.