Investigators believe a woman shot in Triangle, Va., Monday afternoon was an inadvertent victim after setting up two acquaintances for a robbery, police said.
Sandra Lynn McKelvey, 23, of Triangle, and a 42-year-old Fredericksburg man were picked up by a 47-year-old Triangle woman near the Dumfries Shopping Plaza before 5 p.m. and were driven to the 18200 block of Graham Court to meet an unidentified man, police said. That man approached the vehicle, showed a handgun and demanded money from the Fredericksburg man in the backseat.
After taking cash from the Fredericksburg man, the robber beat him with the handgun, which fired, striking his accomplice, McKelvey, in the front passenger seat, police said.
The driver took McKelvey and the Fredericksburg man to the Dumfries-Triangle Rescue Station on Graham Park Road from where McKelvey was flown to an area hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the upper body, police said. The Fredericksburg man also was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
Detectives later learned about the connection between McKelvey and the gunman and their robbery plot, police said.
McKelvey was charged with robbery and malicious wounding and is being held without bond. A court date was set for Jan. 16.
Prince William County police are trying to identify the gunman. He is described as a black man in his early-to-mid-20s standing 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds with a thin build and short, black hair, police said. He was wearing a black, beanie-style hat and a black jacket with two horizontal red stripes on the left upper sleeve.
