Portia Rowland, 32, was fatally shot on the morning of January 21, 2025, while warming up her car in the driveway of her Olive Street home in Collinsville, Illinois. The shooting happened around 6 a.m.; a gunman approached and fired multiple shots, and Rowland was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators described the killing as a murder-for-hire plot. Within days, the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis arrested three suspects: Gary D. Johnson, 45, identified as the shooter; Marty D. Shaw, 33, accused of driving Johnson to and from the scene; and Sammy J. Shafer Jr., 36, charged with soliciting the murder-for-hire. Johnson faces an additional felon-in-possession charge and had a prior 1997 murder conviction. Authorities said investigators used license plate readers and pursued more than 200 leads over five days to make the arrests; petitions to deny release have been filed and first court appearances were scheduled for the following Tuesday.

Rowland’s death has hit her local community hard; friends who knew her from pool leagues described her as positive and vibrant, and a memorial was placed outside her home. Authorities noted Rowland had a relationship with Shafer Jr.’s wife but did not discuss motive in detail.

Did anyone in the Collinsville area know Portia through the pool leagues or see anything that morning that could help?