Central Va. likely to record more homicides this year than in 2008

Central Virginia is on pace to record more homicides this year than last, a trend largely driven by more killings in Richmond, suburban Henrico County and Petersburg.

Forty-eight slayings occurred during the first six months of this year in the 24 localities that make up the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area, compared with 42 during the same period last year.

The region ended 2008 with 82 homicides, or 20 percent fewer than the 107 slayings in 2007.

Seventeen localities reported either no increase or a decrease in homicides during the first half of 2009. Fifteen reported no homicides at all this year.

Richmond, Henrico and Petersburg reported notable increases in slayings during the first half of the year, collectively accounting for 41 of the region's 48 homicides. Twenty-seven of those 41 have been solved.

Chesterfield County, the region's most populous locality with more than 300,000 people, showed the most improvement, ending the first half of the year with no homicides. The county recorded eight killings during the same period in 2008.

The downward trend in slayings enjoyed by Richmond in recent years appears to be ending, with the city recording 27 killings through June 30, or four more than during the same period last year. Richmond ended 2008 with 32 homicides, the lowest total in decades.

Henrico, too, is faring worse this year than last, with nine homicides through midyear. The county had four at the same point in 2008.

And Petersburg, which recorded five killings for all of 2008, already has matched that number during the first half of 2009. But the city hasn't recorded a slaying since March 11. Four of the city's five killings this year have been cleared by arrest.

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The region's homicide numbers usually rise or fall with what happens in Richmond, but that trend has been somewhat blurred this year by increases in Henrico and Petersburg.

Drugs and the economy are being blamed for this year's spike in homicides in Richmond, 17 of which have been solved.

"There are a lot of desperate people doing a lot of dangerous things," Richmond Police Chief Bryan T. Norwood said last month while attending a prayer vigil for a slain shopkeeper at the Come and Go Food Market in South Richmond.

Veteran Richmond homicide prosecutor Learned Barry also noted that the economic downturn appears to be fueling deadly robberies, some of them drug-related. Barry predicted the city would end 2009 with about 50 killings.

Henrico police Lt. Steve Schaaf said there is no rhyme or reason to why Henrico's homicide numbers exceed last year's total for the six-month period. Six of the nine killings have been cleared by arrest.

"It's just kind of hard to put a trend to any of it," Schaaf said. "Some years we start off high like this, then they drop off."

Schaaf, a supervisor in the department's crimes against person unit, said he keeps tabs on each county homicide and there's no common thread or motive among this year's killings. He doubts the economy has had any effect.

"They're all over the place," Schaaf said of the types of slayings. "Some are drug-related, some are altercations between two people, and in a couple of cases it's been domestic-related."

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In Chesterfield, authorities are counting their blessings that no one has been killed so far this year. Capt. Terry Patterson said homicides are very unpredictable, and it's difficult to say why they go up or down in any given year.

Patterson, a veteran homicide detective who now heads the department's investigations unit, said police are reluctant to take much credit because there is a certain amount of luck involved.

"We've had people shot and we've had people stabbed, and certainly if not for their personal luck or medical care . . . it could have been an entirely different situation," Patterson said.

He noted a close call June 15, when a gunman pulled a pistol on a convenience store clerk in Enon and pulled the trigger, but the gun apparently misfired.

The region's rural localities largely have avoided homicides in the first half of 2009, although the counties of Dinwiddie, Louisa, New Kent and Powhatan each have recorded one killing through June 30. More recently, Cumberland County experienced a double homicide.

The Powhatan homicide didn't garner much attention because authorities quickly ruled the killing justifiable. The April 18 incident involved a 12-year-old boy who fatally shot a 38-year-old relative who was assaulting the child's mother, authorities said.

Last year, Powhatan recorded four killings by year's end, the county's first killings in six years.

Cumberland's June 12 killings involved a couple who were fatally stabbed and beaten outside their home by an acquaintance and former housemate, a man now living in Powhatan who was arrested within days of the crime.

Although the couple were killed by someone they knew, the slayings prompted a spike in requests for concealed-weapon permits immediately thereafter, noted Cumberland Sheriff Darrell Hodges.

"We probably had 20 that week, when we normally may get one or two a week," Hodges said. "These people [the victims] knew their attacker, so it wasn't like a random killing. But I guess people are looking for anything to find logic in an illogical situation."

Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or .