The young Derby woman who was killed early Wednesday morning in a mass shooting on Hirschbeck Street on Buffalo’s East Side had five gunshot wounds on her body, her family revealed to The Buffalo News.

The family of Jamie Norton believes that’s further evidence that the 19-year-old woman was targeted for testifying before a grand jury investigation of a murder just hours before the shooting and that the four other shooting victims were unlucky bystanders.

“They were definitely out to get her,” Norton’s grandmother said. She spoke to The News on the condition of anonymity because she is afraid of retribution. “It’s almost like they executed her.”

Norton’s grandmother told The News that the funeral director said Norton’s body had gunshot wounds to her head, cheek, back of the neck, lower back and hand.

“We’re not even sure she can have an open casket,” the grandmother said.

But police officials continued to insist Thursday that evidence they have collected points to an attempted robbery gone awry that left Norton and her friend, Joseph Lovett, 25, dead and three people — Lawanda Strozier, 27, of Hirschbeck; Kimberly Caldwell, 20, of Derby; and Joseph Cole, 29, of Buffalo — wounded.

However, Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson said other motives besides robbery also are being considered.

“We’re open to all the realm of possibilities that this investigation offers, from being a robbery, to being a retaliation, or any other motive that comes up,” Gipson said.

Investigators said that Norton and Lovett, who lived in Buffalo and Derby, were on the porch of a Hirschbeck Street home and Strozier, Caldwell and Cole were in a car nearby when, at about 2 a. m., a single gunman got out of a car.

The gunman approached the porch and a brief conversation ensued before gunfire erupted.

Norton and Lovett both died at the scene. The trio in the car all suffered gunshot wounds and were treated at Erie County Medical Center. Strozier was listed in critical condition Thursday at ECMC. The other two have been released.

Police said only one weapon was used in the shooting and that none of the victims was armed. Officials refused to comment on how many times any of the victims were shot, how many shots were fired, or even which victim they believe was shot first.

Law enforcement sources did tell The Buffalo News that information gleaned from interviews with the surviving victims has led investigators to believe that the lone gunman planned on robbing one of the victims.

Sources also told The News that Lovett was found with a large amount of cash and drugs.

In addition, the two dead victims and one of the survivors had arrest records.

Lovett was just in Buffalo City Court on July 28 to face charges in an alleged assault of his sister at their house on South Division Street in Buffalo a few days earlier. Lovett, according to Buffalo police reports, was charged with assault and harassment after allegedly punching and kicking Nicole Morrison, 28, in the head and ribs during a violent domestic incident about 2 a. m. July 23 in the 700 block of South Division.

Last year, he was arrested on charges of criminal contempt, according to reports.

Police reports detailed several other alleged offenses dating back to 2000, including his arrest in May of that year with another teen on felony burglary, grand larceny and weapons charges after an alleged break-in at a Schutrum Street address where a handgun was stolen. Lovett was 16 at the time. The disposition of that case is not known.

According to Buffalo City Court records, Lovett was sentenced to time served for three other convictions — two in 2002 for disorderly conduct and facilitating the aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle and one in 2004 also for aggravated unlicensed operation.

But Lovett was the victim of crime as well, and his family told The News that his scrapes with the law were the result of a tough upbringing. As a 14-year-old in 1998, Lovett was hospitalized after he was shot with a BB gun and his sister, Cheri, was struck with a rock in a racial attack while they were walking along Broadway, an incident that spurred community outrage.

Records also showed that Norton was arrested twice, most recently in 2006 for marijuana possession. Details on the other arrest are not available. Her family’s attorney declined comment on the arrests.

Cole was arrested on an assault charge in 2005, according to reports.

Michael Lytle, a former pastor at Greater Faith Bible Tabernacle, said he knew Cole and acknowledged he may have had past involvement with gang activity. But, he insisted, “that wasn’t his scene any more,” he said.

“He had to have been a bystander,” he said. “He had to be. He was way past that.”

If it turns out that the shooting was retaliation for Norton’s testifying in a murder investigation, that would be a major blow to police brass, who have reported recent increases in witnesses coming forward with information.

Police and prosecutors have been working hard to counter attitudes about “snitching” in an effort to solve more crimes. The county has been providing a handful of witnesses protection, even moving about three to four in the last year to new locations, in an effort to ensure their safety.

Norton’s family said the young woman was not offered any kind of protection. She had testified Tuesday before a grand jury in the case against Julian L. Christopher, 21, who is charged with second-degree murder in the strangulation and beating death of a 15-year-old Sudanese boy in June. Norton’s grandmother said Norton testified that Christopher locked her inside a room while he took her father’s car to dump the victim’s body.

On Thursday, the Norton family contacted Buffalo criminal law attorney Joseph Muscato to act as family spokesman and conduct his own investigation of the shooting.

Muscato declined to comment on whether he thought Wednesday’s double homicide was a failed robbery attempt or retaliation for Norton’s grand jury testimony.

“She was killed within 24 hours of testifying,” Muscato said. “You can draw your own conclusions.”

But he refused to connect the dots himself. “It’s too early to tell,” he said. “It will all come out in due time. . . . It could be a coincidental robbery. It could be something else. . . . We don’t want to hinder the police.”

Police officials refuse to offer an official comment on the theory of retaliation put forth by the families of Norton and Lovett.

“It would be inappropriate and irresponsible to discuss witnesses or potential witnesses for grand jury proceedings,” said Dennis J. Richards, chief of detectives.

Legal experts explained that someone who testified before a grand jury could be targeted because there is a good chance his or her testimony would no longer be allowed if he or she were killed or went missing.

“They can’t use the transcript because it was never subject to cross examination,” explained Robert N. Convissar, a Buffalo criminal defense attorney and president of the Erie County Bar Association.

Former Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said that while it is rare, it sometimes is possible for testimony from a dead or missing witness to be read into the record for a trial, especially if it can be established that the witness was killed in connection to the case.

“Is it possible to get it in? It is,” Clark said. “But it doesn’t happen very often.”