Woman shot and killed while driving SUV in Orange ID’d

A 24-year-old woman was shot to death while driving a vehicle Tuesday morning in Orange, authorities said.

The woman was driving a Honda SUV southbound on Highland Street, approaching Del Mar Avenue, when an unidentified male fire multiple rounds into the vehicle at about 12:30 a.m., the Orange Police Department reported.

“She was driving the car in a low-income, high-density neighborhood, kind of one of our gang neighborhoods,” said Lt. Phil McMullin of the Orange Police Department.

The woman and her passenger, a friend described only as a woman in her 20s, had just turned around in a cul de sac on Highland and were traveling southbound when the gunman appeared on foot and opened fire, according to McMullin.

While no firearm was found at the location, officers processing the scene indicated about 10 shots appeared to have been fired from a handgun. The driver of the SUV was pronounced dead at the scene, while the passenger reportedly escaped uninjured.

Coroner’s officials on Tuesday afternoon identified the victim as Amber Nicole Parsons, 24, of Costa Mesa, according to Sgt. Gerard McCann of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Although the passenger is a resident of Orange, McMullin said the two women did not have any obvious reason for being in that particular neighborhood at the time of the incident, as the passenger lives elsewhere in the city.

The suspect fled the scene on foot, but no further description was immediately available. Police have no indication the suspect and the victim knew each other, McMullin told the Daily Pilot Tuesday afternoon.

The shooting occurred in the same place where Victor Manuel Trinidad is accused of opening fire on police in November, McMullin said. Investigators have been “going door to door looking for stuff like cameras, witnesses, any evidence left behind,” McMullin said.

“We haven’t had a homicide in two years,” McMullin told City News Service.

Anyone with information regarding the killing was urged to call the department at 714-744-7571. Anonymous tips can be made to Orange County Crime Stoppers at 855-847-6227 or by visiting occrimestoppers.org.

Daily Pilot staff writer Sara Cardine contributed to this report.