Residents of a Gaithersburg apartment complex say they didn’t hear the gunshot that killed Lindsay Harvey, 25, early Sunday morning, but its aftermath left them worried.
“Everyone is on edge,” said Lisa Barry, a neighbor and acquaintance of Harvey’s. “I’m surprised that something would happen to such a nice person.”
Harvey’s body was discovered behind a trash container less than 100 yards from her apartment early Sunday afternoon by a woman walking along the manicured edge of the sprawling complex on the 700 block of Quince Orchard Boulevard.
Montgomery County police say Harvey was attacked and shot sometime between 1:15 and 2 a.m. Sunday as she was walking from her parked car to her apartment. Detectives believe it may have been a robbery turned homicide that ended the life of the DNA analyst. Harvey spent her days at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory identifying the remnants of fallen soldiers from past wars.
The area where Harvey’s body was found is a particularly dark corner of the parking lot that surrounds the three-story apartments, residents said. The floodlights meant to light the area haven’t been working for months, they added. On Monday, crews were attaching new lights to a high wall directly overlooking the trash container. A manager at the Grove Park leasing office declined to comment.
Harvey’s neighbors said they saw her earlier Saturday evening walking her two Labrador retrievers not long before she left around 10 or 11 p.m., and police said they believe she was returning from an evening with friends when she was shot.
Cheryl and Ronald Turyman, who have lived in the Grove Park apartments for 13 years and have three boys, ages 15, 7 and 5, said the neighborhood switches between being good and
bad, and lately it has been on decline.
Several residents said they’ve recently had their cars broken into or otherwise damaged, although they rarely call the police. They point to a recent rise of gang activity in the area as the cause. Underneath a pedestrian bridge connecting Harvey’s complex to neighboring apartments — less than two blocks from Harvey’s apartment — is a fresh graffiti tag: “MS-13” stands out in bright-orange paint.
Police do not believe the incident was gang-related.
