Main image: the scene of the crime in daylight where a murder-suicide occurred in West Palm Beach, Fla. on March 9, 2023 (Screengrab via WPTV). Inset: Kelvi McCray appears in a selfie (Facebook).
A Florida woman was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend while she was on a FaceTime call with friends last week, authorities say.
Kelvi McCray, 18, was shot multiple times in the head, neck, and back by Keisean Shaw, 19, in the West Palm Beach residence they shared, according to police. Her killer is believed to have then killed himself.
“Her boyfriend came in and shot her, my baby dead,” McCray’s mother said in one of the 911 calls about the shooting.
A neighbor also dialed 911 on the night in question.
“And we heard the gunshots in the house. So, the son ran and when I ran to the house, I couldn’t get in,” the neighbor told the dispatcher. “The mother let me in and, by that time, this girl is — she’s on the floor.”
The murder-suicide occurred around 9:45 p.m. on March 6, at a house on 13th Street off North Australian Avenue in the Lake Mangonia neighborhood near Gaines Park, according to a police report obtained by West Palm Beach-based NBC affiliate WPTV.
“The victim was sitting eating dinner and FaceTiming with three friends, when Shaw came in and shot her,” West Palm Beach Police spokesperson Mike Jachles said. “One of the three on FaceTime was actually a witness for us that provided that quick identification.”
The shooter was found slumped against a wall in the living room with a single gunshot wound to his head, police said.
When officers arrived, both the victim and her assailant were still clinging to life and rushed to St. Mary’s Medical Center. McCray succumbed to her wounds later that night. Shaw died the next day.
Before dying, Shaw was charged with murder in the first degree.
The woman’s killer was well-known to police and wanted in the hours immediately before he fired the doubly-fatal barrage of gunfire.
At the time, Shaw was wanted on warrants for aggravated assault with a firearm and domestic battery by strangulation, according to West Palm Beach-based CBS affiliate WPEC. The night before the killing, Shaw pointed his gun at McCray, a detective said.
“We had him at Gaines Park, he then fled took off, led us on a chase for almost five miles,” Jachles told the TV station. “We had to terminate that chase because it was just unsafe. He was on our radar.”
“It’s just heartbreaking an 18-year-old was killed as a result of domestic violence,” Jachles added.
Authorities said McCray and Shaw recently broke up. The man was not taking the end of the relationship well but still lived in the same house as the young woman “because he had nowhere else to stay,” the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports. Investigators say the two knew each other for five years and had dated for over a year when McCray ended things with Shaw, according to The Palm Beach Post.
McCray was a model, stylist, and influencer. She was particularly fond of posting event videos and vlogging food. Her Instagram account gained several thousand followers in aftermath of her death.
“She was as intelligent as she was beautiful,” the deceased woman’s uncle, Ricky Aiken, told West Palm Beach-based ABC affiliate WPBF. “She had a flair for life, a flair that still inspires us today.”
In comments to WPTV, Aiken said the woman’s family was not going to let Shaw win by devastating them.
“I see the message in that, because if that young man wanted to do anything, it was to bring a sense of devastation,” her uncle added. “I think allowing it to not devastate us, speaks volumes to who Kelvi was as a person.”
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