LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On the last day of the deadliest year in Louisville, police are yet again investigating a new homicide. A man and a woman were found dead inside a car in the Smoketown neighborhood.
According to LMPD spokesperson Dwight Mitchell, officers responded to a report of a shooting in the 700 block of Lampton St. around 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 31. The Jefferson County Coroner's Office identified the two victims as 23-year-old Daniel M. Key Jr. and 21-year-old Antonia Lucas.
"I just woke up to the sound of screaming," a neighbor who wanted to go by the name Tiffany said. She lives steps away from where the vehicle was found.
"I came out to see what was going on, and it was the family," Tiffany said. "Clearly the family was upset, they've been looking for this female and they didn't know the person that she was with."
Tiffany said she helped the family of the woman who was killed by calling 911. She talked to the victim's cousins, and shared with WHAS11 what she believes happened based on her conversations with the family.
"[The female victim] left yesterday afternoon to go to get her hair done and [her family] couldn't find her after that so they had just been looking for her all afternoon and evening," Tiffany said. "They tracked her cell phone somehow and they thought that maybe it got stolen or something, so they were out here walking up to alleys, looking at trash cans, you know."
Tiffany didn't recognize the license plate of the car.
"Definitely wasn’t Kentucky," she said.
The neighbor said the vehicle was a black sedan and she doesn't remember seeing it parked before she went to bed.
"I mean I don't remember seeing it at all so I don't know what time it was placed here," Tiffany said.
As police have their hands full, community leaders like those at Interdenominational Ministerial Coalition are trying to step up to fight gun violence in the city. The group of ministers held a "No More Tears" news conference on New Year's Eve, crying out for the violence to stop.
"In 2021 IMC will be working more closely with our churches who are doing the work to see how we can magnify the violence prevention measures so that we can turn tears of pain into tears of triumph," said David Snardon, president of the IMC.
Most of the ministers have seen the impact firsthand and have had to bury 2020 homicide victims.
"I'm sitting with them in their pain and helping them through their pain," Snardon said. "It has a ripple effect that doesn't just affect the immediate family but it affects all of us we can't ignore this because it affects us one way or another."
More than 170 homicides have been reported in Louisville in 2020.
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