Woman in her 50s found dead in St. Paul apartment is city's fourth homicide since Sunday

The homicide total in St. Paul surged Monday, with a fourth being investigated since early Sunday.

A woman in her 50s was found dead by relatives checking on her late Monday morning in her condominium southwest of downtown in the 300 block of Ramsey Street, police said.

Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office personnel told officers at the scene "that the death appeared to be suspicious," a statement from police read.

Police forensic investigators processed the residence for fingerprints and other physical evidence that could help determine what led to the woman's death. Her identity has yet to be released.

No arrests have been announced in any of the four most recent homicides, which pushed the total so far this year to 22.

Police began searching Sunday night for the shooter who opened fire from a vehicle and killed an 18-year-old driving an SUV, in what they now say is not a road rage killing.

The gunfire occurred about 8:45 p.m. Sunday just east of downtown in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood near E. 7th Street and Mounds Boulevard, police said.

Responding officers located the teenager wounded and unconscious in an SUV. Fire Department medics transported him to Regions Hospital, where he died shortly afterward. Other people in the SUV were not hit by gunfire, police said.

The dead driver's name has yet to be released by authorities, but family members identified him as Lavonte D. Baymon-Love, of St. Paul.

"While preliminary information indicated this shooting may have been related to a road rage incident, further investigation has ruled that out," read a statement from police Monday afternoon. "It appears the shooting stemmed from a dispute that occurred earlier in the evening at another location."

Police spokeswoman Natalie Davis said that "our homicide investigators have been working around the clock to find solid answers. Multiple people were transported to headquarters to be interviewed by investigators."

Anyone with information about the shooting is being urged by police to call their homicide unit at 651-266-5650.

This was third homicide in the city in a little more than 20 hours Sunday. The first shooting happened in a downtown parking ramp in the 400 block of Jackson Street, police said. A man in his 30s was taken in a private vehicle about 12:30 a.m. to Regions, where he died. The car had bullet holes in its windshield. Investigators do not believe the shooting was random. The victim's identity has yet to be released.

Less than three hours later, police said they found a man with a gunshot wound in a vehicle on Wabasha Street on Raspberry Island after a 911 caller reported a robbery and shots fired. The man, Blake R. Swanson, 20, of Bethel, also was taken to Regions and died there, police said.

The suspect got in the vehicle, robbed a female and shot Swanson, police said.

Witnesses told police that Swanson and friends were in St. Paul to ride scooters as they had been doing for the past several weeks.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482