By Stephen H. Cowles
Special to the News-Herald

Residents around Holland aren’t sure why someone would have shot William Kendale Jordan to death on Monday.

Jordan, 27, of 850 Dutch Road, was found in his garage at 2 a.m. He had been shot several times, Suffolk police reported. Jordan died at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where he’d been taken by ambulance.

“It’s very shocking to us. We just got back late Tuesday afternoon from Charleston, S.C.,” said Tom Miller, 71, who lives two doors down from Jordan’s home.

“I only know what I heard and saw was written in the paper,” Miller said. “We only met one time, he and his wife. They were a very nice couple.”

He said they moved in three years ago.

“I have no idea what their situation was,” Miller said. “I never heard anything about them.”

Nearby resident Vanessa Collins was shocked. She would occasionally see the Jordans in their yard and would wave, but that was the extent of their contact.

“Seems to be a mystery,” Collins said about the killing.

To Martha Weaver’s recollection, there’s never been a murder in Holland during her 46 years of living at Longstreet Lane and Dutch Road.

“I never saw them out, but they kept a neat house,” said Weaver, 67. “I never saw him.”

She added that her husband, who has a garage in Holland, had met the victim’s wife a few times when she’d come to get air in her tires, and she said he had described her as very neat and polite.

Weaver can’t imagine the motive.

“We just didn’t know him,” she said.

“I didn’t know them personally,” added Lacey Glover, 30, who works at Farmers Hardware.

Glover said there “seems to be a lot of drug traffic” in that area of Holland, adding, “Violence in the area doesn’t surprise me.”

She added, however, that the killing does worry her because she has children.

“You just do what you can to keep your family safe and take precautions.”

Suffolk officials provided only basic information about the shooting on Monday, and a spokesperson from the city did not return a call on Wednesday.

Anyone who has information is asked to call Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP. Callers to Crime Line never have to give their names or appear in court, and may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.