Denna Marshay Williams, a 55-year-old Black/African American woman from Newport News, Virginia, was found lying on the sidewalk in the 4500 block of Jefferson Avenue in the early morning hours of November 26, 2025. Police were called at about 3:10 a.m. after someone reported a person down on the sidewalk, and officers arrived to find Williams unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and the incident was logged by the Newport News Police Department as a homicide in the 4400–4500 block of Jefferson Avenue shortly after 3 a.m. that Wednesday.
According to police and local news reports, investigators immediately treated the case as a suspicious death and opened a homicide investigation. Authorities later described spending the day conducting what they called a thorough, daylong effort to determine what had happened to Williams before she was discovered on the pavement. Officials have not publicly released information about the specific injuries she suffered, the exact cause of death, or any detailed narrative of the moments leading up to her killing, but they have continued to emphasize that the investigation remains active.
By the end of that same day, police announced that they had made an arrest in connection with Williams’ death. A Newport News man, identified by authorities as Andra Leman Austin, was taken into custody and charged with second-degree murder, accused of killing Williams in the Jefferson Avenue incident. Investigators have not disclosed whether Williams and Austin knew each other or what may have motivated the crime, leaving many circumstances surrounding the homicide unclear to the public. Detectives have asked anyone who might have seen or heard something in the area around the time of the killing to come forward, directing potential witnesses to call the regional Crime Line or submit anonymous tips online as they continue to build the case.
Separate public records and obituary information available online indicate that Williams was part of a Hampton Roads–area family with ties to Virginia Beach’s church community, where she was named among the children of Elder Deborah Gilcreast. These records show her as a long-standing member of that extended family network, suggesting that her death not only became another entry in the city’s homicide statistics but also left a significant void for relatives and loved ones in the region.
