Major crime in Richmond was down 9 percent last year compared with 2007, marking the city’s fifth consecutive annual decrease in violent crimes and property crimes.

Virginia Tech police chief said 22-year-old slaying victim had been decapitated. She had only recently arrived at Tech to begin graduate studies.

The annual gathering drew homicide detectives, a mayor-elect, a new police chief and familiar stories of loss. Gwen Mayo and Theresa Williams sat side by side, and when Williams fell to her knees in grief last night, Mayo was there to help her up.

After a long day at work Nov. 8, 2007, Jayne Warren McGowan was settled for the night. McGowan had her ironing board out and was watching a recorded episode of “Ugly Betty.“ The 26-year-old University of Virginia alumna had spent three months planning the AIDS/HIV Services Group’s 20th-anniversary gala coming up two days later. But then she heard knocking at her door. McGowan, hesitant, wouldn’t open it until the men outside her St. Clair Avenue home identified themselves as police officers.

One of two residents shot last week inside a Powhatan County home by men demanding cash was the father of Tahliek Taliaferro, who was slain during an unrelated shooting this summer, court documents show.

Sitting a few feet from defendant John Bradley Crawford, the lead witness dusted off a hazy 28-year-old memory that prosecutors hope will put to rest a 28-year-old murder.

When one of her brothers would have a birthday, Gwendolyn Mayo would call him at 12:01 a.m. to wish him happy birthday. When Nathaniel Mayo’s 53rd birthday came this year on Nov. 1, she waited until after midnight and said out loud that she loved and missed him, even though he wouldn’t be around to celebrate. He and his brother, Willie Mayo, were stabbed and found dead in their South Richmond apartment Oct. 3.