Posted on 05/07/2019 9:50:47 PM PDT by csvset
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) -- All three people who died in Saturday night's double murder-suicide by the 7-Eleven on Effingham Street were all members of the military.
The victims, 19-year-old Shianne Soles and 23-year-old Meaghan Burns, worked at Naval Station Medical Center in Portsmouth.
Police believe the shooter, 22-year-old Donovan Moora, killed them before killing himself. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
This is a hard situation for everyone involved. While police are still investigating the details that led up to the incident, friends and family of the victims and shooter say this was totally unexpected. Moora's brother Brian Gopee was shocked.
"I’m disappointed to know you reach so far in life, and where you come from so far in life, to you know to throw everything away,” said Gopee.
He said this should never have happened.
"That he really loved his job, and for him to do such things, something real bad had to trigger him, something real bad, cause he is nothing like what went on. He is nothing like what went on,” he added.
Friends of the women believe there was something more going on, and if they had a choice, they would never put themselves in a dangerous situation.
"The fear that she must have experienced and for her friend also, I can only think that she probably wanted to protect her friend and her friend probably wanted to protect her,” said Soles' family friend J’aime Kirlew.
In a statement, one friend said in regards to Meaghan: "I've known Meaghan most of her Navy career. She was an amazing woman and loved to travel. She was loved by friends, family, and coworkers alike. She always treated people kindly. What happened to her and her friend is a tragedy.”
Another said, “Meaghan was a wonderful person; she always put others before herself and had an open heart. I only knew her for a short time in California, but she became family to me and a few others. She will be missed.”
Kirlew added that Soles had just started her career and had big dreams.
"She was a great girl, very sweet, very kind. Everything I knew about her, young lots of aspirations," Kirlew said.
Shianne’s family released a statement:
“Shianne Taylor Soles was a bright light that would flood the room wherever she went. Her smile was contagious and her laughter was infectious. She was a friend to everyone that met her and never turned down anyone that needed help day or night. She touched the lives of many. She had a passion to be a part of something bigger. Something where she could help make the world a better place. This led her to pursue a career in the Navy as a Corpsman, beginning her career at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth VA.
Her desire to excel in everything she did led her to many different adventures. From dance to cheer, track and work, school and Navy, she excelled in all that she did. She was driven, focused, and brave until her light faded too soon.
There are no words that can describe the pain we feel or the pain that we see within our support group around us. The words we have received have stretched far and wide and we cannot thank everyone enough.
Thank you for respecting our need for privacy during this time of mourning.”
Witnesses say it's a moment they'll never forget.
"I went running across the street and looked in the car and there was two females laid over both dead in the car, and a bunch of bullet holes in the windows,” said witness Robert Joyner.
A Bureau of Medicine and Surgery spokesman says Hospitalman Burns enlisted in September 2015 and is from Massachusetts, while Hospitalman Soles enlisted in July 2018 and is from Washington state.
Hospital Apprentice Moora enlisted in November 2017 and is from New York.
They added mental health professionals and chaplains are at each location to assist anyone dealing with the grief and difficult nature of this tragedy.
The Portsmouth Police Department has jurisdiction and is investigating the incident with assistance from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. For further information, please contact local authorities.
Donovan Moora. (Credit: Family Photo)
Meaghan Burns
Crazy. Portsmouth is a rough town but two white Navy girls at 7-11? The locals wouldn’t do anything that crazy. Stumbled on a robbery perhaps , I thought. Turns out they knew this guy thorough the Navy.
I Saw two shipmates from the USS AMERICA hauled off by the State Police for robbing and killing a guy not too far from where these folks died, down the street at the shipyard.
Shianne Soles
“I’m disappointed to know you reach so far in life, and where you come from so far in life, to you know to throw everything away,”....
That’s the brother of the shooter. He’s “disappointed” in his brother.
Not CRUSHED that he KILLED two people!!!
My guess is a boyfriend that one of them was trying to get away from
That’s a good guess.
Obsession is a horrible thing, if that’s what it was.
I’ve never had a friend injure a woman in my 51 years, but i’ve seen a few go quite mad before recovering.
Me, I just stacked up on JD until the heartache passed.
also, that missing 4 yr old here in Texas, I had a feeling the minute it came out it was the step father.
I think GOOD stepfathers are the GREATEST guys on earth.
It’s SO HARD to love a child that’s not your biological child the same as a biological one, at least for a guy.
That’s just my opinion.
But I’ll bet a lot of money that crime stats back it up.
B on W murder?
Not exactly “Man bites Dog” News...
[Me, I just stacked up on JD until the heartache passed.]
Shootings in Portsmouth are typically black on black. Whites shooting blacks typically indicates law enforcement involved shootings. There was a black 15 year old yute that shot a female cop awhile back.
It is a tragedy.
As for where everyone ended up, I’ll leave it to God to decide.
He’s MUCH better at it than me :)
LOL
I’ll have to do the math :)
Well at 51 I’m quite sure those days are done for me.
But then one can never say never...
""That he really loved his job, and for him to do such things, something real bad had to trigger him, something real bad, cause he is nothing like what went on. He is nothing like what went on,” he added."
I've been paying attention via the internet for at least 20 years and this is about the most common I.D. in every weird situation
Someone does something (no, not the omar kind) and it's just so weird, people wonder how and why.
In my amateur analytical brain, it all begins in infancy and childhood.
All my homeschooled kids would always be hit (by me), when it was discipline time with;
"How many kids do you know that have both parents at home?", as if to associate the upcoming discipline with a proper and spiritual (we are a born again family) basis for this discipline.
Because NO ONE HAS A MANUAL for how to do kids, this was my understanding of preparing my kids for the future I was afraid would be weird for them.
See, I don't have an answer, but something triggered a young person to kill another for a perceived offense of some kind, and I will always associate that unknown to childhood.
Did Moora come from a home with both parents present ?
Is he public schooled ?
Agreed.
My pop was a good guy. He died when I was 14, too young to keep me out of ANY trouble but old enough to have learned what was REALLY bad to do, the kind of bad there is no turning back from!
Straightened out in my mid 20s.
Had tough Italian uncles and mom called them because I was afraid of DAD if I did something wrong my whole life, not mom.
Sounds like your kids may have been afraid of you too if need be :)
“My guess is a boyfriend that one of them was trying to get away from.”
Sounds like the most likely scenario. I don’t see how the HN who enlisted in 2015 would have crossed paths with the shooter, the HA, but it’s possible the shooter and the younger HN could have met at Hospital Corps school or whatever the Navy calls the joint USAF/USN medic training course in Texas these days. He’s been in longer than her, but he’s an HA (E2) while she’s been in less than a year and she’s an HN (E3). Maybe he came from the fleet after doing the deck seaman thing for a time until he could qualify for Corps School, or maybe they met at Field Medical Service School down in Camp Johnson/Camp Lejeune? I dunno.
But you’re right: some kind of sick obsession with one of the two girls on the part of the shooter, and if he couldn’t have her, no one else was going to have her, either.
This reminds me of the double murder-suicide that took place when I was out in Coronado back in ‘93. In that one, a former USNA quarterback, Alton Grizzard (who’d gone into the Teams) was either watching over a young female fellow officer or guarding her after she’d broken off her engagement from her fiance, who was also an officer.
Grizzard was in her room at the Coronado BOQ when the other guy (the ex-fiance) knocked on the door. The former Navy QB (and LT(jg)) answered the door and was killed after being shot point-blank by the ex-fiance. The jilted ex-fiance then shot the female, killing her, before turning the gun on himself. He died as well.
Another case of sick obsession, just like this one. It’s very sad to see the lives of two young women, in this current case, cut so brutally short because some guy just can’t get over that one of them didn’t want to be with him (conjecture right now in this newest shooting, but it’s probably what went on). SMDH.
Oh well .... we know now that WE'RE OK .... as for the others ......
Well of course it’s all at his discretion, because he has more information than do we, I’m just playing the percentages here. 8>)
You were good enough for me in this conversation :)
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