In the early morning hours of July 21, 2016, the life of 26-year-old Coral O'Brien was tragically cut short in a burst of gunfire at the Walt Whitman Houses in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Responding to a call just after midnight, police discovered the young woman, a resident of Los Lunas, New Mexico, unconscious and unresponsive at 56 North Oxford Walk.
She had sustained multiple gunshot wounds to her head, leg, and arm, and was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency medical services.
Initially, the victim was unidentified. The New York Police Department turned to a fingerprint database to identify her as Coral O'Brien. Authorities also released descriptions of her distinctive tattoos in the hopes of identifying her sooner, which included a shamrock on her left calf, stars on her right ankle, and the names “Johnathan” and “Cerenity” on her chest. Her family was eventually notified of the devastating loss.
In the days following the shooting, community leaders and elected officials gathered outside the Walt Whitman Houses to decry the gun violence that had claimed another life. The incident prompted calls for a greater focus on violence prevention and the expedited installation of security cameras in the housing complex.
Despite the public outcry and police investigation, as of late July 2016, no arrests had been made in connection with Coral O'Brien's murder. The case remains unsolved, with no publicly identified suspects. The NYPD's Crime Stoppers program offered an avenue for confidential tips, but the trail appears to have gone cold, leaving the questions surrounding the death of the young woman from New Mexico unanswered.
