On the evening of February 16, 2022, 34-year-old Yuliya Li was driving home in Saint Paul after buying groceries for a dinner party when a Ford Taurus that had been following her pulled alongside as she slowed to turn from Payne Avenue onto Cook Avenue. A single shot from the Taurus shattered Li’s rear window and struck her in the head. First responders found her bleeding inside her Mercedes; she was taken to Regions Hospital and pronounced dead. Authorities described the attack as random and unprovoked.

Surveillance footage captured a muzzle flash from the Ford Taurus at the moment of the shooting and showed that vehicle at a gas station shortly beforehand. Ballistic evidence linked casings from the scene to a firearm used in two other shootings, and investigators identified a 15-year-old named Melvin D. Williams as a suspect. Williams was arrested in Minneapolis and charged with second-degree murder; the case was moved from juvenile to adult court. In June 2023 Williams, then 17, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a sentence of no more than 386 months in prison as part of a plea agreement that also resolved other pending cases.

If anyone has information about Yuliya Li, her movements that night, or the Ford Taurus involved, please share what is known.