On May 7, the body of 32-year-old Shawn Joseph was found unresponsive near the business office of the Harbor View housing community on St. Croix, the V.I. Police Department reported. Joseph had just been released on parole from the John Bell Adult Correctional Facility on May 6, it said.
At approximately 1:17 a.m. on May 7, the 911 call center was notified of shots fired at the Harbor View housing community. Officers discovered the unresponsive body of a Black man lying in a plant bed in the vicinity of the business office, police said.
The man had multiple gunshot wounds to his upper body and head and had succumbed to his injuries, the police stated. Multiple spent casings were collected at the processing of the crime scene, they said.
The man was identified by his next of kin as Shawn Joseph, formerly known as Akeem Williams, the name he was incarcerated under, police said. His name was officially changed before his release from prison after serving 13 years for the 2009 murder of Johan Andrews that occurred in the John F. Kennedy Housing Community, police said.
Joseph’s death is the territory’s 14th homicide of the year, and the ninth for St. Croix, according to the Source’s Homicide List.* There have been five homicides on St. Thomas.
The investigation is ongoing; The CIB is asking anyone with information to call the Criminal Investigation TIP-Line at 340-778-4950, 911, or Crime Stoppers V.I. at 1-800-222-TIPS.
*The Source Homicide List is a chronological log of the homicides recorded in 2022 in the U.S. Virgin Islands, as reported by the VIPD. Cases are broken down by island. While this listing is based on VIPD reports, the Source does not include suicides or vehicular homicides in its listing that the police and some other media do. This can lead to a discrepancy in the number of incidents reported.