County sees spike in homicides
Six victims in 2016 most in DA’s tenure
There were six homicides in Ulster County in 2016, more than in any single year since county District Attorney Holley Carnright was first elected in 2007.
Although there are similarities, if there’s a trend to the killings, it’s not one that can be easily seen, Carnright said.
Four of the homicides in 2016 involved some form of domestic violence. The other two included a hit-and-run death and the drowning death of a baby.
All told, there were two stabbings, a shooting, a poisoning, a drowning, and a vehicle-related death.
Two occurred in Saugerties, although, according to Carnright, the individuals involved had only
recently moved to the area. One occurred in Phoenicia, one in Kingston, one in Marlborough and one in Ellenville.
None of the crimes were gang- or drug-related, authorities said. Nor do the killings appear to be a part of a growing trend in violent crime in the region. In fact, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services, the crime rate, not only statewide, but in Ulster County, is decreasing.
According to the state agency, Ulster County, with a violent crime rate of 169.3 per 100,000 residents, had the second lowest
in the Hudson Valley region in 2015, the last year numbers were available. Only Columbia County, with a crime rate of 166.7 per 100,000 residents, had a lower violent crime rate.
In 2015, there was only one homicide in Ulster County, according to Carnright. According to the Freeman’s archives, there were four homicides in 2014. There have been no homicides so far this year.
Carnight said violent robberies are down significantly over the past eight years, and while other violent crimes such as assault and sexual assaults have remained steady or decreased slightly. Likewise, he said, despite the obvious increase in domestic violence-related
deaths in 2016, the county has made strides in reducing the number of domestic violence incidences by aggressively prosecuting those who commit such crimes.
“This is completely out of the ordinary,” Carnright said of the 2016 homicides.
“You look at the different fact patterns and I don’t see a correlation,” he said. “If there’s a pattern, I don’t see it.”
The first two homicides of the year occurred two weeks apart in May, both in Saugerties.
• On May 26, Earl Edwards Jr., 27, fatally stabbed Ramen Perry,40, after Edwards found Perry in the bed of Edwards’ estranged wife. He pleaded guilty to second degree murder in February and is
expected to be sentenced on April 25.
• Karon Bowden, 41, shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, Amy Burger,21, on May 31. Although police didn’t say at the time what precipitated the dispute, they said there had been a history of domestic violence between the two. Bowden pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in March and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 24.
• Kayla M. Pagan, 26, was arrested on July 8 and charged with criminally negligent homicide following the drowning death of her 10-month-old daughter, Lilliana Angelina Ryerson. The child died after Pagan left the girl unsupervised in a bathtub at the family’s Marlborough
home while she attended to other matters.
Pagan pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide on March 9 and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 11.
• Sarra Gilbert, 27, was arrested on July 23, by police who found the lifeless body of her mother, Mari Gilbert, 52, while conducting a welfare check on elder Gilbert at Sarra Gilbert’s village of Ellenville apartment. Authorities said Mari Gilbert had been stabbed repeatedly. Sarra Gilbert pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder by reason of mental disease or defect and is expected to stand trial in Ulster County Court on April 17.
• Khalil Waheed, 24, , Kingston, was arrested on
Oct. 6 and charged with manslaughter for the Sept. 20 hit-and-run death of Ashlee Crescione, 23, near Crescione’s city of Kingston home. In February, an Ulster County grand jury indicted Waheed on the reduced charge of criminally negligent homicide. That case is still pending.
• The final homicide of 2016 occurred in Phoenicia on November 19, when Solane Verraine, 62, was charged with second-degree murder in the poisoning death of her husband, John W. Owings Jr., 65, a musician who went by the stage name Johnny Asia. That case is pending grand jury action.
“This year we have never not had a homicide case pending,” Carnright said.