Two homicides remain unsolved
In a span of less than four months, from November 2019 through February 2020, there were three homicides in Kingston, only one of which has resulted in an arrest.
It’s been more than eight months since Oct. 24, 2019, when Daniel Thomas, 27, was fatally shot near the intersection of Cedar and Prospect streets in Midtown. About a week later, on Nov. 1, Myron T. Moye Jr., 36, was shot and killed in a house on West O’Reilly Street, also in Midtown.
The third homicide victim, Ashley Stephan Dixon, 31, was fatally shot on Feb. 11 outside a building at the Stuyvesant Charter apartment complex on Sheehan Court in Midtown. That investigation ended in March when Cory Q. Smith, 35, of St. Ann’s Avenue in the Bronx, was charged
with murder in that shooting.
Until recently, homicides were unusual in Kingston and three in a span of less than four months appears to be without precedent. In recent decades Kingston has rarely seen more than one homicide per year, and the city sometimes has gone several years in a row without a killing.
It’s also rare in Kingston for a homicide or violent crime investigation not to result in an arrest in a relatively short period of time.
Kingston police initially discussed the investigation of the Thomas and Moye killings, saying their small department and eight detectives were working overtime to solve them both. They said the department had received assistance from the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office and town of Ulster police.
In February, Chief Egidio Tinti said investigators were continuing to follow “leads and tips” in both killings and Detective Lt. Thierry Croizier said detectives were “actively working” both investigations. They have said the three killings appear to be unrelated.
City police did not return calls and emails this week or last about the status of either investigation.
Before the Thomas shooting death in October 2019, the last homicide in Kingston was in November 2017, when Seth Lyons, 20, of Ulster Park, fatally beat Anthony Garro Jr., 49, beneath the Elmendorf Street overpass along an unused railroad corridor in Midtown.
Lyons was arrested just hours after Garro’s body was found, and he was convicted of second-degree murder in September 2018 and sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison.
Lyons told police he beat Garro — using his fists, rocks, a bottle, a tree stump and his foot — because he believed Garro had stolen his cell phone.
There were no homicides in Kingston in 2016 or 2015, but two killings occurred in the city in 2014:
• Mark Carpino was accused of bludgeoning his 86-year-old mother, Audrey, in April 2014 in the home they shared on West Chester Street. Carpino has been deemed unfit to stand trial and is in the care of the state Office of Mental Health.
• In February 2014, David N. Reese, of Gilboa, fatally shot co-worker Aron J. Thomas, 33, of Olivebridge, in the New York City Department of Environmental Protection office on Smith Avenue. Reese was convicted of second-degree murder in June 2015 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Both Carpino and Reese were arrested almost immediately after the killings.
Prior to 2014, there was one homicide in Kingston in 2013; none in 2012 or 2011; one in 2010; and none in 2009. The 2010 and 2013 killings both resulted in arrests and convictions.