Ashley McCoy, a 26-year-old White woman who had graduated from North High School in Sioux City, Iowa, was living in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in early 2023. She was in a relationship with Elizabeth Ashe, and the two shared an apartment on Mineola Drive.
On the morning of February 11, 2023, a neighbor called emergency services just after 8:30 a.m. The caller reported that Ashe had "accidentally shot her partner." When Virginia Beach police officers arrived at the apartment in the 1000 block of Mineola Drive, they found Ashe performing CPR on McCoy. Despite these efforts, McCoy had suffered a fatal gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators learned that McCoy had been lying in Ashe’s lap when she was shot in the back of the head. Ashe, who was 24 at the time, told police that she had been cleaning her gun and thought she had removed all the bullets before it discharged.
Police took Ashe into custody in connection with her girlfriend's death.
Ashe was initially arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter and discharging a firearm within an occupied dwelling. The case then proceeded through the Virginia Beach court system.
In October 2023, Elizabeth Ashe appeared in Virginia Beach Circuit Court and pleaded guilty to amended charges of second-degree murder and unlawful discharge of a firearm in a building. Following her plea, a sentencing hearing was scheduled for December 14, 2023.
