Dolores Williams, a 39-year-old Black female from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, was killed on the morning of April 11, 2018, in a shooting inside the apartment building where she lived in Stowe Township. Police said the gunfire broke out around 7 a.m. in the 1100 block of Island Avenue, and neighbors placed the scene in a third-floor unit of building 1116. When officers arrived, they found Williams dead inside the apartment from gunshot wounds. Her 15-year-old daughter had also been shot and was rushed to a hospital in critical but stable condition.
The shooting quickly took on the shape of a domestic violence case. Authorities identified 42-year-old Jamar Ray Allen as the leading suspect, and sources described him as Williams’ ex-boyfriend. Police were already familiar with him and had been looking for him even before Williams was killed because he was wanted on a rape charge. Other reporting said he was also wanted in connection with a March home-invasion assault involving a minor.
As investigators searched for Allen, the case moved fast. Later the same day, Allen was found dead inside his car in the 500 block of Cora Street in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood. Authorities said he died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police had issued an advisory earlier that day saying they wanted to question him in connection with the shootings of Williams and her daughter, and investigators described him as the leading suspect.
No arrest followed because Allen was dead by the time police located him. Authorities said they did not believe anyone else was involved in the shooting, though investigators still noted that crime lab testing, including ballistics, would be used to confirm whether Allen was the shooter. The available reporting does not describe a trial, conviction, or additional suspects, and the case appears to have ended as a suspected murder-suicide-style domestic shooting in which Williams was killed, her teenage daughter survived, and the suspected gunman died by suicide later that morning.
