World examines the city’s violent deaths
BY NICOLE MARSHALL & CURTIS KILLMAN World Staff Writers
Sunday, July 13, 2008
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homicides from 1997 to
the present, view interactive
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of interviews with family
members of victims:
“The impact goes far past the victim in
all of these crimes,” the police chief says.
Violence claimed more
than 500 lives in Tulsa during
a decade’s time.
The families of more than
500 homicide victims buried
their loved ones. Police
tracked more than 500 murderers
on the city’s streets
— often multiple killers for
individual slayings.
By examining police, state
Medical Examiner’s Office
and state Health Department
records, the Tulsa World reviewed
homicides during the
last 10 years: 1998 through
2007. The analysis showed
that 507 people were slain in
Tulsa during that time.
The city averaged 41 killings
per year between 1998
and 2002 and 60 per year
between 2003 and 2007, records
show.
The youngest victim was
an unborn child who died
when her mother was repeatedly
stabbed during a
domestic attack; the oldest, a
96-year-old woman who was
shot to death in a murdersuicide
at a Tulsa cemetery.
Three out of four of those
slain were men. Fifty-nine of
the victims were juveniles.
And every killing has a farreaching
impact on families
and the community, Police
Chief Ron Palmer said.
“It does not just touch one
person — the victim,” Palmer
said. “The impact goes far
past the victim in all of these
crimes.’’
In 26 years as the Tulsa
police and fire chaplain,
Danny Lynchard has made
more than 1,000 death notifications,
including for homicides
and other unexpected
deaths such as suicides and
traffic accidents. Yet, he said,
it still shocked him to consider
the human toll of more
than 500 homicides during
the last decade.
Lynchard ranks homicide
as the most traumatic death
experience for families to
endure, with suicide and fatal
fires second and third.
“It is so unexpected. It’s not
natural for that to happen,”he
said. “It destroys their world,
and they no longer live in a
safe world anymore.
“All the things they live
their life based on are challenged
— even their faith in
God.’’
The killing pace
A look back over the decade
shows Tulsa’s sporadic
pace of homicides, which police
say is one reason killings
are hard to predict and prevent.
In 2002, for example,
the city saw 35 homicides,
but the next year the total
nearly doubled. Sixty-nine
people — the largest number
in Tulsa’s recorded history
— were killed that year.
Sometimes the city will go
weeks without a homicide;
other times detectives literally
go from scene to scene.
The longest period without
a homicide during the decade
was the 72 days between Sept.
27 and Dec. 8, 1999.
The deadliest day occurred
nearly 10 years ago — a day
Maurice King said he remembers
like it was yesterday.
On the morning of Feb. 12,
1999, his sister Markita King
was preparing her children,
Ebonie, 4, Essynce, 2, and
Marjonna, 8 months, to be
picked up by their father, Edwin
Bell of Oklahoma City.
Fleeing an abusive relationship,
the 22-year-old woman
had left Bell three months
earlier and moved to Tulsa
to live with her aunt.
Bell, 23, arrived that morning
along with his mother,
Linda Farris, 45. Sometime
before 10 a.m., he killed
Markita King, all three girls
and his mother and then
turned the gun on himself in
the Kings’ apartment at 1925
N. Gary Ave.
Markita King’s sister went
to the apartment about 10:30
a.m. to check on the family
because she had known that
Bell was coming and feared
for their safety. She saw a
motionless baby on the floor
and fled to call the police.
Chilling police radio dispatches
revealed the discovery
of one body after another.
Police said it was the largest
mass killing attributed to
one person in recorded Tulsa
history.
Maurice King, who was 21
at the time, had to drive several
miles to the scene after
learning that four members
of his family had been killed.
“It was hard getting there,
but the thing that hit me was
when I got to Pine and Harvard
and I saw all the news
trucks and all the people,’’ he
said.
As he walked up, a police
officer met himand took him
closer, where he saw that the
door to the apartment was
ajar.
“I could see my little niece’s
legs where she was lying on
the floor. That is when I really
lost it,’’ he said.
Maurice King, now a
probation officer in Dallas
County, talks to people he
supervises about the impact
of his family’s domestic violence-
related slayings.
“I have had a couple of
guys who were doing the
same kind of thing. I told
them about what happened,
and they really seemed to
turn their lives around,’’ he
said. “As much as I can, I really
try to share what I know
about the situation. If I don’t
share, I am not doing anybody
justice.’’
Every city is different
A city’s homicide total for
a decade is difficult to put in
context nationally because
many demographic factors
come into play, police say.
From 1998 through 2007,
St. Louis, Mo., had 1,213 homicides,
while 141 homicides
occurred in Arlington, Texas.
The Minneapolis homicide
total during the decade —502
— was very similar to Tulsa’s.
Those cities range in population
from about 340,000
to 385,000 residents, while
Tulsa has about 384,000, according
to Census estimates.
The nationwide homicide
rate for cities with populations
between 250,000 and
500,000 is 12.9 murders per
100,000 people, according to
the most recent information
available from the FBI.
In comparison, Tulsa’s murder
rate from 1998 through
2007 ranged from a low of 8.4
murders per 100,000 people
in 2000 to a peak of 17.8 murders
per 100,000 in 2003.
Palmer said that although
people often base their perceptions
of how safe cities
are on their homicide rates,
many other factors could be
better gauges. Even if they
have similar populations, cities’
demographics differ in
one way or another, and that
affects the number of homicides,
he said.
“If you look on past the
raw figures and look at the
demographics, poverty levels
and other crimes and
what goes on there, you get
a little bit different picture,”
he said. “It is hard to do an
apples to apples comparison
between, I think, any city …
because each one is different;
each one has its own personality,
and, seemingly, each
city kind of has its own level
of what they will tolerate in
regards to that number.’’
Solving cases
When looking back at the
homicides over the years,
Palmer said he first considers
the kinds of cases the city
faces.
Most homicides in Tulsa
involve people who know
each other, he said, adding
that “there are not a lot of
stranger-on-stranger deaths
in Tulsa.’’
“I don’t think, in a lot of
cases, we can prevent what
people do to other people.
That is just a bad trait of humanity
in general,’’ Palmer
said. “How we end up with
the cases on our desk, and
what we do with it after that,
is what I look at. I think we
are right up there at the top
in regards to our solved rate,
and that speaks very favorable
of the PD.”
A historical look at homicides
in Tulsa shows that the
clearance rate — or percentage
of cases solved —hasbeen
consistently greater than the
national average, Homicide
Unit Sgt. Mike Huff said. He
said about 90 of the 507 homicides
from 1998 through
2007 remain unsolved.
Homicide detectives take
a retrospective look at murders,
he said, primarily with
one goal in mind: solving
more cases.
“It does not matter whether
it is one death, 10 or 20 or
500. These families, these
survivors, expect us to solve
it, and there is no room for
error,” Huff said.
The Homicide Unit has
two current projects focusing
on open homicide cases and
missing-personinvestigations
during the past 10 years.
“There is no statute of limitations
on homicides,” Huff
said. “Our goal is to put murderers
in jail, period. That’s
it. If they are in jail, where
they belong, they are not going
to hurt anybody else on
the streets.’’
Nicole Marshall 581-8459
nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com
Curtis Killman 581-8471
curtis.killman@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
One of six people who died in a domestic murder-suicide is taken out of an apartment at 1925 N. Gary Ave. on Feb. 12, 1999.
One of six people who died in a domestic murder-suicide is taken out of an apartment at 1925 N. Gary Ave. on Feb. 12, 1999.
Harold Alexander (left) and Chaplain Danny Lynchard (right) comfort Fannie King at the scene
of a murder-suicide at 1925 N. Gary Ave., where six people—including four members of King’s
family — died on Feb. 12, 1999.
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