News

Homicides infrequent in county

Posted June 27, 2016 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Staff Writer

The June 22 stabbing incident at Bernasek's Bar and Grill in Chester was the city's first homicide - outside of Menard Correctional Center - in a dozen years.

But the altercation created the question of why homicides in Randolph County don't occur that often.

"I think that's a testament to law enforcement and the people around here," said Randolph County State's Attorney Jeremy Walker. "It's a credit to the people and a credit to officers that all of our towns, for the most part, are safe for a lack of a better word."

Steeleville Police Chief Lyn Thies said it has been at least a decade since his department handled a homicide.

"We have very few homicides and the homicides we have in the county, I don't think we've had an unsolved homicide in the past 25 years that I can recall," he said. "I think it's just the more close-knit communities."

For the majority of police departments in the county, full-time officers are required to live within a certain radius of the community they serve.

The Chester Police Department had a radius of four miles from city hall for full-time officers - and the boundaries of the Chester school district for part-timers - but the Chester City Council approved an expansion request in July of last year to push the radius to the school district for all officers.

"I haven't really thought why they don't occur more often or occur more often than other areas," said Chester Police Chief Ryan Coffey, who was a 28-year-old detective during the city's last homicide investigation in 2004. "I haven't done the math, but if you took our population and matched it against a big city, then crimes against a person, the frequency would be about the same."

All of the sources for this story were asked if proactive police work played a factor in the infrequency of homicides.

"I think in a smaller community, you hear more things if you have a situation that's going on," Thies said. "You'll hear people talk and neighbors talk and we'll hear something beforehand and interject ourselves in the situation and calm it."

According to homefacts.com, violent crime ranked third highest on the list of crimes in Randolph County in 2014 - the latest statistics were available - with property crime and larceny/theft taking the top two spots.

Violent crime in the county was reported to be 65.6 percent lower than the national average. Homefacts, a subsidiary of RealtyTrac, is a neighborhood-level database that uses public record data to form risk assessments of national and local areas.

The Illinois State Police's Uniform Crime Report for 2014 lists Randolph County with a crime rate of 1,095 per 100,000 people. That was the third lowest in Southern Illinois behind Johnson (809) and Perry (853) counties.

"It's a horrible crime and I'm glad we don't see more," said Randolph County Sheriff Shannon Wolff of homicides. "I think (the infrequency) is attributed to good response times, good law enforcement and good people."

Coffey noted that the visibility of officers in their communities helps act as a deterrent for criminal activity, but that homicides can also occur "in the heat of the moment."

"The motive for homicide or murder varies so significantly, you almost have to target motive in how do we prevent this," he said. "Domestic violence is a big one and if there's a homicide, there can be a history of domestic violence that leads up to the homicide.

"In the event you're in a public place and an altercation leads into a homicide, that's a tough thing to prevent."

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