A woman was shot and killed before dawn Sunday in New Orleans East, with police saying officers found her suffering from a gunshot wound on Ridgefield Drive near the I-10 Service Road. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and investigators have not released any information about a suspect or a possible motive.
According to WDSU, the shooting happened just before 3:45 a.m. Sunday. Officers arriving on Ridgefield Drive found the woman already wounded, and she died at the scene before further details could be gathered.
The Ridgefield Drive killing came after another shooting in New Orleans East Saturday evening. Police responded around 7 p.m. Nov. 7 to a report of a man shot in the neck near Dwyer Road and Downman Road; he was taken to a hospital, and his condition was not known in the latest account of the two incidents. The cases were being investigated separately, with no connection between them reported.
No Suspect Identified as Investigation Continues
As of the report, police had not named a suspect or offered any theory about what led to the shooting. The lack of information mirrors a pattern seen in other recent New Orleans East cases, where investigations have moved slowly in the days immediately following a killing.
In a case from Venetian Isles, for instance, 31-year-old Stephanie South was fatally shot around 2:38 a.m. on Oct. 6 at the intersection of Old Gentilly Road and Wilson Avenue, the station's report notes. She was declared dead at the scene, and according to that same account, no arrests had been announced days later, with police providing no further updates as of that Tuesday morning.
A Mixed Picture in Citywide Crime Data
Separate reporting from earlier this year offered a broader, if incomplete, snapshot of violence trends in the city. As of Jan. 22, New Orleans had recorded seven homicides for 2026, about a 63% decrease from the 19 homicides reported over the same stretch in January 2025, the station's report found. Yet the same data showed 11 shootings reported that month, compared with seven during the same period the year before.
The early-year figures in the article are part of a broader decline in citywide violence, though they do not measure the trend in New Orleans East alone. In July, the NOPD said violent crime—defined to include homicides, nonfatal shootings, carjackings and armed robberies—fell 70% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2022. The department reported homicide victims fell from 156 to 44 over those periods, a citywide comparison that offers context but does not predict the course of an individual investigation, the department’s announcement said.
Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche cautioned at the time that the early numbers shouldn't be read as a forecast. “Three weeks’ worth of data do not accurately predict what the rest of the year is going to look like,” he said, per the same account. That same January reporting period also noted police were searching for a suspect in a separate fatal shooting at the Willow Apartments in New Orleans East.
Sunday's shooting remains under investigation, and no further details about the victim or circumstances have been made public.
The NOPD’s Homicide Division leads homicide investigations across New Orleans; its work includes support for district investigations of suicides and unclassified deaths. The division also has a Cold Case Unit, while a Victim/Witness Assistance Unit offers services including safety planning, crisis intervention and case updates. People with information about an unsolved case can contact the department’s Cold Case Homicide Section at 504-658-5300, the department’s division page states.
