Nov. 19, 2004 – Police are saying they view the apparent murder of a man on St. Thomas this week as separate from an incident in which he was shot on St. Croix Nov. 3.
Tyre Wilkes, 28, was pronounced dead of several gunshot wounds at Roy L. Schneider Hospital late Tuesday night. Wilkes was living on St. Croix but had family on St. Thomas, according to media reports.
Wilkes was found shot to death Tuesday in Paul M. Pearson Gardens near Building 10.
In the earlier incident on St. Croix, Wilkes was one of four men wounded in a shooting at the FNA service station near Sunny Isles, one of whom was an off-duty police officer. (See "Two Dead, Four Wounded in St. Croix Shootings"). The fifth victim in that shooting, 29-year-old Tyrone Knight, was killed at the scene, reports said.
Police have also made public the identity of the 15-year-old victim killed in a Nov. 14 incident where a St. Thomas man went on a rampage for no apparent reason, killing Denroy Corbett, who was watching a game of dominoes Sunday afternoon near Anna's Retreat, Sgt. Thomas Hannah, a police spokesman, said. The perpetrator, Joseph Wilkensen, threw rocks through windows, tried carjacking a vehicle and wounded two other people before being killed himself by police. (See the St. Thomas Source story "Teen Killed, Suspect Shot Dead by Police").
The homicides were the 18th on St. Croix and 15th and 16th on St. Thomas for 2004, a total of 34 for the territory this year.