Victoria Truss, a 34-year-old Black/African American woman, was killed during a violent early-morning domestic incident on July 3, 2025, at the Shorewood home where she had been living near North Bartlett Avenue and East Wood Place in Milwaukee County. Authorities were called to the area shortly before 3 a.m. after another resident of the building was shot. Truss was subsequently found outside the residence suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Court records later described wounds to her arms, chest and neck, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office classified her death as a homicide.
Investigators identified Michael Griffin Jr., 34, as the man responsible for the shooting. Griffin had been in a relationship with Truss and was variously described by family members and court records as her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend. According to search-warrant information, the landlord told investigators that Griffin broke into the building shortly before the killing and shot him multiple times. The wounded landlord later reported hearing approximately 17 gunshots coming from Truss’s lower residence. Police ultimately found Truss outside, while Griffin had already fled.
The violence continued as Shorewood officers arrived. Police said Griffin opened fire on a responding squad car, with at least two rounds striking the windshield and another hitting the passenger side. One officer was struck in the upper shoulder area, but the officer’s ballistic vest stopped the bullet and prevented a potentially fatal injury. The officer was treated and released from the hospital. The landlord also survived his gunshot wounds. The shootings prompted authorities to warn nearby residents to shelter in place while officers searched for Griffin.
The investigation also revealed troubling events in the months before Truss was killed. On May 11, 2025, Truss had called Shorewood police and reported that Griffin, then described as her ex-boyfriend, had a firearm and was refusing to leave her residence. Griffin was gone by the time officers arrived. Family members later said Truss had endured domestic violence for years. Records obtained from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office showed that Griffin had previously been arrested in connection with other alleged violent incidents. A domestic-abuse battery case referred in 2013 was not prosecuted, and separate first-degree recklessly endangering safety referrals arising from arrests in 2020 and 2021 also did not result in prosecution.
More than six hours after Truss was killed, officers located Griffin driving a vehicle and attempted to stop him. A pursuit followed through the Milwaukee area. Police said Griffin continued fleeing even after officers attempted to disable the vehicle and that he fired at law enforcement during the pursuit. The chase eventually reached the area of Reservoir Avenue in Milwaukee, where Griffin’s vehicle came to a stop and a prolonged exchange of gunfire erupted between Griffin and officers. Griffin was fatally shot during the confrontation and was found dead inside his vehicle. Officers from multiple agencies were involved, and the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team, with the Oak Creek Police Department serving as the lead agency, investigated the law-enforcement shooting.
Because Griffin was killed during the confrontation with police on the same day Truss died, he was never arrested, formally prosecuted, tried or convicted for her homicide. Authorities nevertheless publicly identified him as the suspect responsible for shooting Truss, her landlord and the responding Shorewood officer, and later reporting described him as the man who killed Truss before fleeing from police. The case therefore did not proceed through the normal criminal-court process that would have determined guilt at trial.
Truss’s death devastated her family and the Shorewood community. Loved ones remembered her as a mother, sister, daughter and friend, and reports said she left behind a teenage son. Flowers, balloons and other memorials appeared outside the home after the shooting, and family and community members gathered for a vigil in her honor. What began as violence inside and around her home ultimately developed into a multi-agency manhunt and deadly police confrontation, leaving Truss at the center of a homicide that investigators and her family described as the culmination of domestic violence.
