In the spring of 2019, a tragic act of violence cut short the life of 23-year-old Meaghan Elizabeth Burns in Portsmouth, Virginia. A female U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, Burns was fatally shot on the evening of May 4, 2019, in what investigators determined to be a double murder-suicide.
The incident unfolded in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven, where Meaghan Burns and her friend and fellow Navy Corpsman, 19-year-old Shianne Taylor Soles, were shot and killed.
The man responsible for their deaths was identified as 22-year-old Donovan Moora, also a Navy Corpsman, who was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. After shooting both women, Moora was found in a nearby vehicle with a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Meaghan was remembered as a vibrant and compassionate individual. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, she enlisted in the Navy in 2015 and had served in Naples, Italy, before being stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. Described as a fierce and loyal friend, she was trying to help Soles at the time of the shooting. Reports indicated that Moora was the ex-boyfriend of Shianne Soles.
The profound loss was deeply felt by her family, who described her as a witty, warm, and caring young woman with a love for travel and adventure. Her father, a former Marine and a physician assistant, spoke of his daughter's desire to help people and her plans to pursue a career in healthcare after her naval service. The community in her hometown of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, mourned her death, with hundreds gathering to pay their respects as her body was returned home.
