A 19-year-old Norfolk, Virginia man is in custody after being accused of fatally shooting three women and wounding two women in the Young Terrace housing development in Norfolk.
According to the Virginian Pilot, Ziontay Brian Ricardo Palmer, shot and killed Nicole Lovewine, her partner, Detra Brown and Sara Costine.
Around 6 p.m on Nov. 3, Lowewine, Brown and Costine were outside when Lovewine’s 19-year-old daughter pulled up in her car with Palmer in the passenger seat.
After she exited the car, Palmer began shooting, hitting her in the shoulder and killing Lovewine, Brown and Costine. An unidentified 39-year-old woman was also shot. The women were all shot while trying to help Lovewine’s daughter, WAVY 10 News reported.
“The young lady was in the back and the gentleman shot her, and then he approached the mom and her girlfriend and shot them and then two neighbors who tried to help he shot them too,” the neighbor who wanted to remain anonymous told
The neighbor added that the women were “shot execution-style.”
Palmer was arrested and taken into custody a few hours later and charged with three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of malicious wounding along with a slew of firearm charges.
Palmer opened fire while many children were outside playing and they witnessed the tragic shooting. One of the children was Lovewine’s young son, who another unidentified neighbor told the Pilot was 10 or 11-years-old.
Norfolk Police Chief Larry Boone was highly concerned about the children who saw this terrible incident.
“They probably had to walk to school right through that,” Boone told the Pilot. “It breaks my heart to look at those young kids … trying to process what they’re looking at. I’m a grown man with 30 years of police experience and it shook me to my core. I can only imagine what it did to those kids.”
A GoFundMe has been created for Costine’s family. She left behind six children. So far, $1,565 raised of the $20,000 goal has been raised.
