HOMICIDES
The number of those tearful notifications has surged with more bloodshed.
A man’s lifeless body was discovered in a Milo-Grogan apartment courtyard just after midnight Tuesday in the 1000 block of Olmstead Avenue. Police said 37-yearold Aaron Fletcher Leapheart III was shot and then fled from the gunman inside his apartment only to collapse outside. Leapheart’s death tied the yearly record of 139 homicides, which the city last set in 1991 during the crack cocaine epidemic.
Then a death investigation on Christmas Day was ruled a homicide Tuesday, breaking the record by sending the death total to 140.
Rose Douthitt, 57, was found inside a residence in the 1200 block of Sigsbee Avenue on the Near East Side at 4:46 p.m. Monday. Medics pronounced her dead at 4:51 p.m. It’s unclear how she died, but police said there were “several signs of trauma to the victim’s body.” Tuesday, the coroner’s office ruled the injuries were consistent with a violent death.
Still, the murder rate in Columbus was higher in 1991 with 21 people per 100,000 killed. The city’s population has since grown by about a
third to 860,090, according to census data. So far, the rate this year is 16 people killed per 100,000.
There’s a mix of reasons for the increase in homicide numbers, including the opioid epidemic, gunmen firing more rounds and the scourge of gangs setting more violence in motion.
Police have tied at least four recent homicides to a single suspect, Darnell Vinson, 20, a member of the Bomb Squad, which is a gang that consists of different sects of Bloods, according to investigators. Detectives are continuing to look at other deaths that could be linked to Vinson, Sicilian confirmed Tuesday.
In one of the cases, Vinson and 22-year-old Devon D. Bias are suspected of killing two people in the 200 block of South Wayne Avenue on the Hilltop Dec. 4. Bias, who is in custody, faces two murder charges in connection with the deaths. A grand jury is expected to hear the case against Vinson and determine charges, Sicilian said. Vinson already is locked up on two other homicide charges involving two Deuce Deuce Bloods members on the South Side in two different incidents.
More than 30 rounds were fired in the Hilltop shooting alone, Sicilian said.
Police clearance rates have plummeted for homicides this year. Nationally, clearance rates hover around 60 percent. As of Dec. 11, Columbus’ clearance rate, defined as suspects arrested or cases cleared, was 36 percent. Cleared cases happen, for example, if a killing is ruled self-defense or if the suspect is killed.
With the added number of cases this year, detectives are working more hours, exceeding the overtime budget before the year’s end.
This month, detectives in Columbus began tapping federal resources to help crack cases. The Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team, based out of the U.S. marshal’s office, has agents, officers and deputies from multiple federal, state and local agencies. The strike team, which focuses on violent offenders as well as gang intelligence, began aiding detectives, Sicilian said.
Homicide detectives on first shift are normally tasked with investigating deaths and assaults. A week ago, the division’s cold-case unit began working assaults to help ease caseloads, he confirmed.
In Cleveland, there have been similar measures as homicides have continued to tick upward over the past few years. As of Tuesday, the city hit 128 homicides, said Cleveland Police Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia, a spokeswoman for the department. That’s far from the city’s record of 333 homicides set in 1969. Federal resources have helped detectives with a growing caseload, she said.
Cleveland has a homicide review task force that often focuses on cold cases, but it also examines newer cases. A federal agent and an analyst are part of that task force, she said.
Even without the rise in violence, investigators in Columbus already were facing challenges combating a no-snitch culture in neighborhoods where residents fear retaliation if they help police. In recent years, that hesitance to help law enforcement has been amplified after a black man was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.
At the news conference, Sicilian pleaded for more help from the community.
It’s possible the number of homicides in Columbus will grow before the year wraps up.
Police were called to the 100 block of North Guilford Avenue in Franklinton on Tuesday morning after a woman, believed to be in her late 20s, was discovered with head trauma amid a pool of blood in an alley behind a residence. Police were still waiting for the coroner to determine a cause and manner of death.