Denna Marshay Williams, 55, was found unresponsive on the sidewalk in the 4500 block of Jefferson Avenue in Newport News in the early morning hours of November 26, 2025. Police were called at about 3:10 a.m.; she was pronounced dead at the scene and the Newport News Police Department logged the incident as a homicide shortly after 3 a.m. that Wednesday.

Investigators treated the death as suspicious and launched a homicide probe, conducting a daylong effort to determine what happened before Williams was discovered. Officials have not released the specific injuries, the exact cause of death, or a detailed timeline of the moments leading up to the killing. By the end of that same day, authorities arrested Andra Leman Austin, a Newport News man, and charged him with second-degree murder in connection with Williams’ death. It is not public whether Williams and Austin knew one another or what may have motivated the crime.

Williams is identified in public family and obituary records as part of a Hampton Roads family with ties to Virginia Beach’s church community, where she is named among the children of Elder Deborah Gilcreast. Detectives have asked anyone who saw or heard anything in the area around the time of the killing to contact the regional Crime Line or submit anonymous tips online. Did anyone in the Jefferson Avenue area that night see or hear something that could help investigators?