A 22-year-old St. Croix woman was shot and killed early Wednesday, the V.I. Police Department reported.
The victim was identified by next of kin as A’shyra Sweeney. Police are treating the death as suspicious, pending the medical examiner’s finding. If so, it was the seventh homicide on St. Croix since the start of the year, the 11th in the territory.
According to police, at around 3:20 a.m. Wednesday the 911 dispatcher notified the Criminal Investigations Bureau about a female being shot in La Vallee, Frederiksted.
Officers responded and discovered an unresponsive female. The woman, later identified as Sweeney, was transported to the Gov. Juan F. Luis Memorial Hospital where she was pronounced dead by the emergency room physician.
Police, in their 6:30 p.m. news release, issued no further information on the circumstances of the shooting. The case is under investigation by the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s Major Crime Unit.
Police urged anyone with information about the incident to call the CIB at 340-778-2211, the 911 emergency call center, or the anonymous top service, Crime Stoppers USVI, at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).