Police: Woman Accidentally Shot After Orchestrating Robbery

Police say a woman set up two acquaintances to be robbed Monday night but was accidentally shot during the incident. 

Sarah Lynn McKelvey, 23, of Graham Court in Triangle, was charged with robbery and malicious wounding. 

A 47-year-old Triangle woman picked up McKelvey and a 42-year-old Fredericksburg man near Dumfries shopping plaza and drove them just before 5 p.m.  to the 18200 block of Graham Court in Triangle (near Dumfries).

"Once there, the man approached the vehicle, displayed a handgun and began assaulting the male victim with the handgun," Officer Jonathan Perok, a spokesman for the Prince William County Police Department, said in a press release. 

As the suspect was beating the victim, the gun went off and struck McKelvey, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. After the shooting, the driver took the two passengers to the Dumfries-Triangle Rescue Station on Graham Park Road. 

Rescue employees helped the victims and McKelvey was flown to a nearby hospital. The man was driven to the hospital. Both had non-life-threatening injuries. 

Detectives from the Violent Crimes Bureau determined during the course of their investigation that McKelvey was involved in the incident, Perok said. McKelvey "had arranged the meeting to take place near the cul-de-sac and had been inadvertently shot during the encounter," Perok said, but neither the male victim nor the female driver were involved. 

Detectives are still working to identify the shooter. McKelvey was held without bond pending her court date on Jan. 16. 

The shooter was described as 20-25 years old, about 5'7", with a thin build, perhaps 140 pounds, black with short black hair. He was wearing a black beanie style hat and a black jacket with two horizontal red stripes on the left upper sleeve. 

The information in this article was supplied by the Prince William County Police Department. Where arrests are mentioned, it does not indicate a conviction.