Pierce County On Pace For Most Murders Since 2010, Data Show

FREDERICKSON, WA - After two murders early Monday morning in unincorporated Pierce County, the total number of homicides in the county is at a near eight-year high, according to crime statistics. There have been 14 murders in unincorporated areas this year so far, more than all the murders in all but two of the past eight years.

If you include cities in Pierce County like Tacoma, the total number of homicides is now up to 25 in 2018.

In March alone, nine people have been murdered in unincorporated areas. That includes a man who killed his wife and young children before commiting suicide; a man stabbed in a gas station parking lot near Puyallup; a man shot and burned in a rural treehouse; and a mother and father allegedly murdered by their son.

Overnight Monday, a 60-year-old woman was shot in a rural area south of Graham. Moments before that, a 22-year-old man was shot and killed at a home west of Thun Field.

There's no clear pattern to the killings, according to law enforcement officials. Sheriff Paul Pastor told the Tacoma News Tribune that local residents should expect the year to end with a high homicide tally.

"Why the spike, I don’t know. Parents killing kids, kids killing parents. I don’t expect we will be having those challenges constantly through the year, but we’ll probably have a fairly high year in homicide," he said told the paper.

Here the number of homicides in just unincorporated Pierce County from the last 10 years. These numbers are from the FBI's annual crime report:

• 2017: 10*
• 2016: 12
• 2015: 16
• 2014: 12
• 2013: 10
• 2012: 17
• 2011: 10
• 2010: 10

*According to a count of news articles about murder in the county in 2017. FBI data is not available for that year yet.

Image courtesy Pierce County Sheriff