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NSBNEWS.net video by Sera Frederick / Volusia County Sheriff's investigators work the scene of a Tuesday night multiple-gunshot slaying of a woman outside an Oak Street residence at the intersection with Washington Street, just west of the New Smyrna Beach city limits. Watch our exclusive 1 a.m. video report from the scene.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The unmistakable sound of gunshots where a woman lay dead outside an Oak Street home near the intersection with Washington was so loud just before 9:45 p.m. Tuesday., it woke up small children and elderly folks in this quiet enclave just west of the city limits.
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Photos for NSBNEWS.net by Chris Atwell / Sheriff's deputies and homicide investigators converge on Tuesday night's crime scene in greater New Smyrna Beach.
The piercing noise has become an all-too familiar refrain across Volusia County less than a month into the new year with three violent homicides, all involving handguns.
The victim was pronounced dead at 9:53 p.m., less than 10 minutes after Volusia County deputies responded to multiple 9-1-1 calls of repeated gunshots fired, their piercing blue lights flashing as dozens of neighbors rushed to their doors to see what all of the commotion was about.
Yellow tape was quickly put up around the yard of a residence at 290 Oak St. where the victim was found bloodied with an apparent gunshot wound to the head.
An outer perimeter tape cordoned off all four corners of the intersection where a large crime-scene truck partially obscured the front yard of the residence, an old white wood-framed house with a small pick-up truck parked on the side.
The victim's identity was not released nor was an age or race given. At least two neighbors in the predominantly African-American community referred to as the West Side, said the victim was white. Out of fear, they declined to say whether they knew her or if she even lived there.
"This is crazy," a teenage boy on a bicycle said of the shooting. An elderly man craning his neck around his screen door was upset about the sudden and violent end that came upon this victim.
"You couldn't help but hear the shots," the man said, his wife trembling next to him from inside the screen door. There were three in a row, really fast and then two more together. Five. Five shots."
Several neighbors said the woman was shot in the head, though Volusia County Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said any information about where the victim might have been shot is speculative, something her armed killer likely knows. That assailant has not been apprehended.
"When deputies began arriving at 9:45 p.m., they found the victim on the ground along a walkway that leads to the front of the residence," Davidson said."Witnesses said they saw a vehicle in the area immediately after the shooting, although it's unknown whether it was connected to the killing."
The Sheriff's Office's Major Case Unit responded to the scene to assume responsibility for the investigation.
Not even a full month into 2011, already Volusia County law enforcers are dealing with a third homicide, all involving handguns.
The first homicide occurred literally 2 1/2 hours into the new year when an Ormond Beach man allegedly opened fire on the boyfriend with his estranged wife as they left the Rockin' Ranch bar and got into the victim's pick-up truck. Several hours later Christian Pursley was charged with premeditated first-degree murder in the killing of Keith "Shorty" Roberts of South Daytona.
Deltona resident Erin Gray was shot to death Jan. 17, inside her garage allegedly by a gunman purportedly trying to collect on a drug debt.
A Volusia County grand jury handed up capital murder charges against both accused gunmen, setting the stage for State Attorney R.J. Larizza to possibly seek the death penalty as punishment for both at trial if convicted. He has not yet announced whether he will seek the ultimate punishment against either of the accused killers.