VIOLENT CRIME ON THE RISE?

Many Cases Related to Drugs, Domestic Disputes

PRINCETON - The increase in violent crimes and homicides reported in
the region in 2003 can be largely associated with drug-related
offenses and domestic disputes, authorities said Friday.

"Taking the last couple of years, 2002 and 2003 together, it seems
like to me that we have had a few more homicides than normal," Mercer
County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Sadler said. "Some of them were
domestic related, and some of them were not."

However, the majority of the homicides investigated by authorities in
2002 and 2003 were attributed to domestic disputes and drug offenses.

Sadler said officials also investigated several fatal drug overdoses
in 2002 and 2003 that led to criminal charges. He said a triple
homicide in the Glenwood community on Sept. 22, 2002, has added to the
county's unusually high murder rate.

"It seems like in the past couple of years, we've also had an increase
in aggravated robberies," Sadler said. "This would be a person who
goes into a store and robs by violence. It can be without a weapon if
there is some sort of violence to the person."

Sadler said the number of sexual assault cases reported in Mercer
County in 2003 was pretty much consistent with previous years, but
said the court system did see a large number of property-related
crimes, including an increase in burglaries and forgery and uttering
cases.

"I think the drug problem feeds into the increase in your aggravated
robberies as well as your property crimes," Sadler said.

Although he didn't have actual statistics readily available Friday,
Sadler said Mercer County's murder rate in 2003 was still far below
the unusually high number of homicides reported in Kanawha County in
2003. Those homicides investigated in Kanawha County included three
still unsolved sniper-style shootings in the Charleston area.

In McDowell County, six homicides were reported in 2003, and more than
500 felonies were charged through magistrate court, Assistant
Prosecuting Attorney Danny Barie said.

"I haven't really noticed 2003 being significantly different over the
last eight or nine years," Barie said. "I'm aware of five deaths that
were charged as homicides. But five or six homicides, I would say, is
not far from average for us. I don't see a huge, huge difference in
the violent crime rate in McDowell County."