Matthew Lawrence was a male victim who lost his life to gun violence on February 1, 1974, in Chesapeake, Virginia. Records from the Chesapeake Police Department’s Cold Case Homicide Investigations list him among the city’s unsolved homicides, noting he was fatally shot at 5040 Queen Street during that early February day. His death occurred amid a period when Chesapeake was documenting multiple violent deaths, and his case has remained open and unsolved for decades.
On the night of his death, Lawrence was struck by gunfire in what investigators classified as a homicide. Despite being cataloged by the police department’s Crimes Against Persons Squad and appearing on public cold case lists maintained by the city, there is no publicly available information that details the specific circumstances leading up to the shooting, the events at the scene, or any potential motives that may have driven the act. The scant official record focuses primarily on the fact that he was shot and killed, with little elaboration on his activities earlier that day or any known interactions with individuals who might have been involved.
Over the years, Lawrence’s murder has remained on the cold case list, meaning that no arrests have been announced in connection with his death. Law enforcement has not publicly identified any suspects or persons of interest linked to the shooting, and there are no known charges, trials, or convictions connected to this crime. The Chesapeake Police Department has periodically called for tips and information that might help solve the case, but as of the most recent available records, the identity of the shooter or shooters remains unknown.
Family, community members, and investigators are left with an incomplete narrative of Lawrence’s final hours, and the passage of time has turned what might once have been active investigative leads into historical footnotes. Without new evidence or witness testimony, the story of how and why Matthew Lawrence died on that February night in 1974 is preserved only in the bare outlines of police records and the enduring unanswered questions that surround unsolved homicides.
