Police say videos posted before the killing are now part of the homicide case.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A 17-year-old Harrisburg girl has been charged with homicide after police said her 18-year-old boyfriend, Tamar Shaw, was stabbed late Monday inside a Market Street home and later died at a hospital.
Investigators say the case quickly shifted from a reported cutting to a homicide inquiry after Shaw’s death, a coroner’s ruling and the discovery of social media videos that police say showed the teen handling knives and threatening Shaw before the stabbing. The arrest came Tuesday, one day after officers were called to the 1400 block of Market Street. The Dauphin County district attorney said the investigation is still developing as police work to pin down exactly what happened inside the bedroom and kitchen where officers found evidence.
Police said officers were dispatched at about 10:52 p.m. Monday after a report that a man had been cut and was losing blood. When they arrived, Shaw was in the kitchen while someone held a bloody white towel to his chest, according to the affidavit. Officers said he was unable to clearly explain what had happened before telling them he could not breathe and then collapsing. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died. The Dauphin County Coroner’s Office identified him as 18-year-old Ta’Mar Shaw of Steelton and ruled the death a homicide caused by a stab wound to the chest. In the charging documents, police said the wound entered the chest cavity and required significant force.
Investigators interviewed Delaysia Terrell-Brown, who told officers Shaw was her boyfriend. According to the affidavit, she said the two were in bed when Shaw asked for a small knife to cut paper to roll a blunt. She first told police the knife may have become tangled in the bedding and that Shaw may have been cut when the blankets were moved. Later, police said, she gave another version and said she did not know where Shaw had put the knife and did not actually see the moment he was injured. Police also said she acknowledged the pair had argued earlier in the day, though she denied they were fighting when Shaw was stabbed. During a search, officers recovered three knives, a torn black comforter, a white towel, a pink sheet with blood on it, marijuana roaches and drug paraphernalia, according to court records.
The case took another turn the next morning when police received a Crime Stoppers tip about Instagram posts allegedly made shortly before the stabbing. According to the affidavit, one video showed a hand holding a knife and trying to stab Shaw while a caption referenced cutting his wrist. In another, police said Terrell-Brown pointed a knife at Shaw and warned him, and in a third she was seen throwing a serrated knife onto his neck while he lay in bed. Investigators wrote that the knives in the videos appeared consistent with knives recovered from the room. Police also said the 911 call drew scrutiny because the caller repeatedly asked for an ambulance and did not ask for police. None of those details, on their own, settles the full sequence of events, and prosecutors have not yet publicly laid out a full timeline of the final moments before Shaw was wounded.
Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo said the arrest did not end the inquiry. “These investigations don’t end with an arrest,” Chardo said, according to local reporting. “We continue working to determine exactly what happened.” Harrisburg police formally announced that Terrell-Brown was arrested Tuesday, April 7, and charged with murder and possession of an instrument of crime. Local television coverage of the affidavit also reported a drug paraphernalia count. Because Terrell-Brown is 17, questions about how the case proceeds through court, including whether prosecutors seek to move it fully into adult criminal court records or what additional hearings may be scheduled first, were not immediately answered in public postings reviewed Wednesday and Thursday.
Neighbors told reporters the violence was especially unsettling because both people involved were so young. One resident said it was frightening for a fatal case to unfold so close to home in a neighborhood where children live. The scene police described was already intimate and chaotic: a couple inside a bedroom, a knife reportedly used moments earlier, blood on bedding and towels, then officers arriving to find Shaw struggling to speak. Those details have turned a domestic scene into a high-profile Dauphin County homicide case centered on digital evidence, conflicting statements and a wound investigators say could not have happened without substantial force.
The case stood Thursday with Terrell-Brown under arrest and Shaw’s death ruled a homicide. The next major milestone is expected to be a court proceeding in Dauphin County as investigators continue reviewing evidence, including the videos, physical items seized from the room and witness statements.
Author note: Last updated April 9, 2026.