Oklahoma City detectives can't explain city's lowest murder rate in memory

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Police are trying to solve a murder mystery: why have there been so few of them in Oklahoma City this year? "We don't know why," police spokeswoman Sgt. Cris Cunningham said. "We don't have any preventive measures for homicides, so it's hard to explain why the rate has dropped."

Through most of the 1990s, the average number of murders in Oklahoma City hovered around 75 each year, not even counting the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 people.

As of Friday, there were 36 homicides in Oklahoma City in 2000 -- by far the lowest total homicide detectives can remember, Cunningham said.

In 1998, there were 60 homicides in the city, marking the lowest total since at least 1977, Cunningham said. In 1999, there were 61.

"They (detectives) can't remember anything in the past lower than 1977, and that counts for a lot because they've been here, most of them, a long time," Cunningham said.

All but three of this year's homicides have resulted in charges against a suspect, Cunningham said.

Of the three open cases this year, one of them --the Friday stabbing death of Melinda K. Grayless -- is expected to result in charges next week.

Grayless' boyfriend, 21-year-old Nathan Crowell, of Amarillo, Texas, was arrested on a murder complaint.

Two other cases have been open for months.

Guadalupe Rivas, 33, was shot to death July 11 in a house where she worked, while Earl Campbell, 40, died of an apparent beating on March 18.

While some investigators continue to seek suspects in those cases, other detectives are taking advantage of the light caseload to focus on unsolved murders from previous years.

"There are several they feel like they're really close on,"

Cunningham said.

"There's no statute of limitations on murder, of course, so whenever they can, they pick up a cold trail and work it with the other investigations."

One case that may be nearing resolution is the May 1998 shooting death of Ronnie Taylor. Taylor was killed by an assailant at the Cornerstone Apartments.

"They have received new information in that case, and they're working to develop it now," Cunningham said.