As family and friends gather for Genevieve Orange’s wake tonight, Fairfax County police remain mum on the details behind who beat the 29-year-old to death in her Falls Church apartment last week.
Residents of the Prestwick apartments on Leesburg Pike told The Examiner Tuesday that despite security measures — a key card entryway, closed circuit surveillance cameras and security guards — there are frequent gaps.
A rear door that provides access to a loading dock and leads into the building is typically left unlocked, and security guards are sometimes slow to respond to complaints, residents said.
Calls to the building’s management company, Berkshire Property Advisors LLC, were not returned.
A Fairfax County police spokeswoman said she did not know if the building’s surveillance cameras caught the killer and declined to release any information about the case, saying she had to be “very particular about what to say and not say in order to protect the ongoing investigation.”
For Orange’s friends, the lack of information proved frustrating.
“[The homicide] makes absolutely no sense,” said Carly Isaac. “I am hoping and praying it is in the Lord’s will that answers will come.”
Isaac said she met Orange three years ago at the McLean Bible Church, where the two sang in the choir together and participated in “Frontline” — a church within the megachurch that caters to young adults.
On Orange’s Facebook page, dozens of friends have left comments praising Orange, a Virginia Tech alum and Roanoke native. Among those comments were two friends who said they “had no idea [she was] literally spending some of [her] last hours” with them.
Police said they discovered Orange dead from blunt force trauma to her upper body Thursday morning when they responded to a request to check her welfare. Police would not say who made the request.
Isaac said she has “trust” that detectives will find Orange’s killer.
“She was a wonderful friend and knew what it meant to love people,” Isaac said. “All of us can rejoice in that she’s with God right now.”
Anyone with information is asked to call 866-411-TIPS/8477, or call Fairfax County police at 703-691-2131.
