Six murders

In 2008, Thunder Bay boasted a murder-free year.

It was clear within the first month of 2009 that the city wouldn’t repeat its fortunes. By the end of the year city police had six homicide investigations on the books.

That is the most murder cases reported in one year for Thunder Bay in more than 15 years, and becomes tbnewswatch.com’s fifth top news story of ’09.

Thunder Bay Police Service officers began investigating the first murder of the year in mid January. Police didn’t wait long as their second, third and fourth homicide investigations all started before May.

The growing number of homicide investigations reopened the debate over community safety in the city, which is a debate that surfaced several times throughout the year.

While many argued that the number of murders seen in Thunder Bay in 2009 was an indication of an out of control violent crime rate, others believed the one year spike could easily be considered out of the ordinary and not a trend.

Murders in Thunder Bay by year:

1993 – 3
1994 – 2
1995 – 5
1996 – 2
1997 – 3

1998 – 3
1999 – 4
2000 – 1
2001 – 3
2002 – 1

2003 – 1
2004 – 0
2005 – 3
2006 – 2
2007 – 3

2008 – 0
2009 – 6