YOUNGSTOWN — A male driver, 19, and female passenger, also 19, died when their vehicle traveling on Interstate 680 northbound was hit by many bullets Thursday night.

Police were called to the interstate near the Salt Springs Road exit for a possible accident and discovered the two gunshot victims in a green Nissan Altima with numerous bullet holes.

The man was dead at the scene, but the woman had a pulse and was taken by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, where she died, according to Youngstown police.

Police were called there at 10:43 p.m. and discovered the crime, resulting in detectives, crime scene investigators and others being called to investigate the shooting, which police are calling a “double homicide.”

The names of the victims were not released as of Friday night.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 3390-746-CLUE or 330-746-8YPD. Tips may be left anonymously. Tips leading to the arrest and /or conviction are eligible for a reward.

These are the first two homicides in Youngstown in 2023.

There were 23 homicides in the city in 2022 and 31 in 2021, a 25 percent decline, according to the Youngstown Police Department.

The final two weeks of 2022 also were deadly in Youngstown with a man, 51, and a woman, 41, being found shot to death Dec. 20 at a home on Cherry Hill Avenue on the city’s West Side; and a man, 26, being shot to death outside of the Shell gas station at 1907 South Avenue, early Dec. 22.

Akeem Hargrove, 29, of Parkcliffe Avenue, was arraigned Tuesday in Youngstown Municipal Court Tuesday in the Dec. 22 killing of Devin Bell, 26, at the gas station. The man and woman from Cherry Hill were identified as Kimberly Kalasky and Joseph Sanders.

erunyan@vindy.com