ST PAUL, Minn. — St. Paul police said a woman was found dead in an apartment in the city's North End Saturday in a shooting that could be related to another crime committed that night.
Officials said emergency dispatchers got a call just after 9 p.m. reporting shots fired in an apartment building in the 100 block of East Sycamore Street. The caller said someone had been shot.
Police said they found a female victim, later identified as 35-year-old Damara Stowers, with gunshot wounds when they arrived. St. Paul officers gave Stowers first aid until St. Paul fire medics pronounced the woman dead at the scene.
The Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office will autopsy Stowers and provide more information in the coming days.
While officers were investigating the apartment, a person waved down a responding sergeant nearby, in the 90 block of East Acker Street. They reported a carjacking where a male victim was shot in the hip area and a suspect fled in the victim's vehicle.
The victim was taken to Regions Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Preliminary information shows the carjacking and Stowers' death are connected, but officials said more investigation is needed to confirm the connection.
“Right now I think we all believe, based on time, based on distance, that these cases could be related. But our investigators can’t work off of circumstance, they need facts. And it’s going to take time to determine those facts,” Ernster said at an overnight media availability.
No arrests have been announced as of Sunday morning.
Police ask anyone with information to call officials at (651) 266-5650.