Tracking year’s first homicide isn’t only about the bad news

Frank Cerabino

I don’t want to jinx it, but we’re off to a relatively mellow start when it comes to murder and mayhem in the new year.

If, like me, you’re one of those people who tracks the first local homicide of the new year, you will have noted that we went four whole days without a homicide in Palm Beach County this year.

Believe it or not, this is noteworthy.

We usually start the carnage more quickly. This year’s first casualty was Manuel Jerome Poole, 51, who was shot and killed in a West Palm Beach apartment on Jan. 5 during a dispute with another man.

The first local homicide 10 years ago was on the evening of New Year’s Day in 2007 when a drive-by shooting in Riviera Beach killed Tavaras Carter Jr., an 8-month old Read Frank Cerabino’s recent columns online at child, and wounded four other people.

The first local homicide 20 years ago was minutes into the new year of 1997, when Anthony Mitchell, 20, was struck and killed by a stray bullet as he stood outside a liquor store in Pahokee.

The first local homicide of 1967, 50 years ago, was also on Jan. 1, this time when Audrey Boyd, 38, a mother of five in Lake Worth, shot and killed her husband with seven shots in the abdomen.

So getting all the way to Jan. 5 this year is an achievement worth noting.

In the 10 most recent years, we’ve had three more New Year’s Day homicides in Palm Beach County.

In 2010, six hours into the new year, the body of Jeffrie Jones, 22, was found shot and dead on the side of Pioneer Road in suburban West Palm Beach. The following New Year’s Day morning, Vito Cag- giano, 23, of Loxahatchee, was shot and killed during a party.

And in 2014, an argument over a woman with another man led to the New Year’s Day shooting and killing of Kevin Paulk, 27, of Riviera Beach.

In 2012, we made it to Jan. 2 before Jimmy McMillian, 49, a grocery store merchant in Belle Glade, was shot and killed during an attempted robbery of his store.

Last year, it was Jan. 3 before the stabbing death of Lauren Ashley White, 27, of Lake