FREDERIKSTED — Police are investigating after a St. Croix man was fatally shot in the head on Mahogany Road on Wednesday afternoon.
Leon Thomas, 40, was positively identified by a family member as the homicide victim, the Virgin Islands Police Department said.
The case began at 1:46 p.m., when 911 dispatchers began to get calls about an unresponsive male near Mahogany Road in Frederiksted, according to the VIPD.
VIPD and VIFEMS were dispatched to the scene and found Thomas with a gunshot wound to the head.
The first responders confirmed that Thomas had no signs of life.
The death brings the total number of homicides reported in the territory so far this year to 40, including 21 on St. Thomas and 19 on St. Croix.
Thomas was one of two men arrested on October 2, 2022 after police said they were found “driving around with a sawed-off shotgun and ammunition,” Superior Court records show.
VIPD mug shot of Curtis Bernard of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
At the time, Curtis Bernard was charged with unauthorized possession of a firearm and unauthorized possession of a firearm in a vehicle, while Leon Thomas was charged with unauthorized possession of ammunition.
The arrest occurred on a Sunday afternoon at around 1:35 p.m. when police on patrol saw a black BMW traveling on Melvin Evans Highway, which the officer recognized “as a vehicle involved in a burglary incident,” according to court records.
Officers also checked the registration and found the license plate did not match the car, so they conducted a traffic stop and interviewed the driver, Leon Thomas, and his passenger, Curtis Bernard.
At the time, Thomas said the vehicle was not registered or insured, and “he admitted to affixing a license plate that does not belong to his vehicle to avoid being stopped by the police,” Superior Court records show.
Police informed him they would impound the vehicle after conducting a search, and found a black “sawed-off” shotgun leaning on the front passenger side front seat with the barrel resting on the floorboard, according to court records.
Bernard claimed ownership of the gun and said he’d “just bought it from a guy up the road,” but did not have a license to possess a firearm, police said.
Police began to search a backpack found in the trunk, which Thomas said contained his tools for work. Inside Thomas’ bag, police found a plastic box containing 49 .22 caliber rounds “and several bags of jewelry” in the backpack.
Thomas then changed his story and said the backpack “does not belong to me,” and Bernard had put the ammunition into it, Superior Court records show.
Police identified the weapon as a “rusted, black, 12-gauge, sawn-off shotgun (Revelation Mossberg R310AB), with white tape wrapped around the grip” and three live rounds in the ammunition tube.
Before his arrest in 2022, Thomas had no prior criminal history. But Bernard has a previous felony conviction.
Anyone with information on this matter can call 911, the CIB tip line at 340-778-4950 or Crime Stoppers USVI at 1-800-222-8477.
