Simone Veal: Pregnant New Orleans woman shot dead in double shooting

Simone Veal was an accomplished woman with more life to live. A native of Illinois, Veal previously attended Xavier University in New Orleans. She got a job in pharmaceuticals and was doing well.

But she had trouble in her marriage. She wed in 2012, her mother told local media.

Police said the shooting recently got even more tragic. Not only was the life of a Westwego police officer taken in the Friday, January 20, 2017 slayings, but the female victim was eight months pregnant, according to the Jefferson Parish coroner's office.

Police said Simone Veal's body was found about 6 a.m. at a street corner in Marrero. When the officer stopped to assist her, he too was fatally wounded, shot in the back of the head, according to the Times-Picayune.

Surveillance video released by police shows two people apparently fighting in a Marrero street on the night of the murders. Police had gotten a 911 call about a domestic disturbance in the middle of traffic.

But then things turned deadly.

After interviewing witnesses, police said that neighbors heard at least three gunshots and someone saw Veal's car hurriedly backing into a neighbor's yard, mangling the vehicle's exterior by running over a chain-link fence.

Simone Veal, 31, was shot to death January 20, 2017 during a domestic dispute in Marrero, Louisiana. 

 They also saw a U-Haul truck crash into Veal's car from the back. That's when the officer came upon the scene, witnesses told the Times-Picayune.

The man in the U-Haul got out of the truck when the officer approached the scene. The gunman came up behind the cop and pulled the trigger.

"This was a cold-blooded murder," Westwego Police Chief Dwayne Munch was quoted as saying.

Sylvester Holt, 32, was named by Westwego police as a "person of interest." Holt was Veal's husband, police said. He later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Holt shot himself in the chest during an hours-long standoff with police after he threatened to jump off a New Orleans bridge.

The officer, Michael Louviere, 26, was married with two young children, police said.