Murder Town USA (aka Wilmington, Delaware)The first thing that happens when I arrive at the Wilmington, Delaware, train station is that the newsstand cashier hands me counterfeit money as change when I buy an umbrella. Next, I walk outside and look for Sergeant Andrea Janvier. She’s just over five feet tall, weighs about 1.

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This fall she became Wilmington’s public information officer, which means it’s now her job to be nice to journalists like me. When I get into her cherry- red police car and tell her the location for an interview I have later that day, she lowers her Ray- Ban aviators, looks me in the eye and says, “I wouldn’t go to that block without a gun.”During my four days in Wilmington last month, there were four shootings, allinvolvingmale victims between 1. None occurred while I was driving around with Janvier, 4. I did a ride- along with two cops. But as Janvier texted me the morning after I went home, “I just left a homicide scene, wouldn’t it figure!” A few hours later, another text: “And a shooting just came in on Hilltop. It’s usually always busy, it was just slow when you were here.”This is not unusual for a place that’s routinely called one of the most dangerous small cities in America.

This year, there have been 2. Wilmington, tying its record 2. Twenty- two of them died. With a population of just over 7.

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Wilmington had a violent- crime rate of 1,6. FBI’s 2. 01. 3 Uniform Crime Report (that crime rate measures murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault). The national average was 3. Wilmington ranks third for violence among 4. Michigan towns of Saginaw and Flint, according to a Wilmington News Journal report.

For a city mired in violence, the most stunning fact of all may be that Wilmington just got its first homicide unit. See Newsweek Subscription Offers. When you ask people in Wilmington about the root causes of the city’s crime epidemic, their answers read like the devil’s Christmas list: poverty, racism, lack of economic opportunities, drug and alcohol abuse, gun violence, high dropout rates, teenage pregnancy, stressed families and more. In the U. S., homicide is the leading cause of death for black men between 1. In Wilmington, where 5.

African- American, crime and violence disproportionately affect poor black families, especially boys and young men. Exacerbating tensions between residents and law enforcement is the fact that the police department is 7. That disparity is reminiscent of Ferguson, Missouri, which was thrust into the national spotlight this summer when a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teen. Protests erupted across the city as police poured into the streets dressed in camouflage and armed with tanks, tear gas and military- grade weapons.

With a population of 2. Ferguson is much smaller than Wilmington, though it, too, has a predominantly black community (6. The New York Times). As events unfolded in Ferguson, manynewsorganizationscalled the city a “war zone.” In Wilmington, where there is neither tear gas nor armored vehicles rolling down the streets, it’s been that way for years, with nary a mention in the national press.

Wilmington Police Sergeant Steve Chaffin follows up with a resident in the West Center City neighborhood after the resident's spouse entered the emergency room of Christiana Hospital carrying three knives. The shootings have devastated parts of the city but are generally confined to four or five poor neighborhoods that circle downtown, and they’ve turned into war zones.”“You have a city with a deteriorating, almost destroyed infrastructure,” says City Councilman Jea Street, who is executive director of the Hilltop Lutheran Neighborhood Center. Chrysler and GM are closing. The port, where, historically, young people without college educations could go get a job, that’s no longer a viable option.”Mayor Dennis Williams, who took office in January 2. Wilmington had 1. News Journal), blames the city’s school system.

It should have never got to that point—and the state has been running the school districts here since 1. Geography is another issue. Halfway between Philadelphia and Baltimore, Wilmington has become a way station for drug traffickers.

When I- 9. 5 was built in the 1. City Council President Theopalis Gregory Sr. The highway made it easy for anyone looking to buy drugs to get off at the nearest exit. Today, some of Wilmington’s most crime- ridden neighborhoods are in I- 9.

Hilltop and Browntown. This fall, the Department of Justice named Wilmington as one of six cities—along with Chicago; Detroit; Oakland and Richmond, California; and Camden, New Jersey—selected for the Violence Reduction Network. The program will support and train communities on how to develop long- term solutions for addressing violence and crime. The situation in Wilmington is so dire that, earlier this year, the state brought in the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate the cycle of lethal violence and trauma in the city.

The CDC is supposed to present its findings by the end of the year. In the meantime, Wilmington’s homicide unit—five detectives, one supervisor, one retired detective (paid by a grant) handling cold cases and two agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—started combing through the year’s unsolved murders. In mid- November, one month after assuming their new roles, they solved their first case, bringing this year’s tally for cleared murder cases up to four.

Brother Lamotte X of the Wilmington Peace Keepers, which works to reduce crime and violence in the city, says he started campaigning for a homicide unit six years ago. The nicest neighborhoods are snuggled in leafy middle- and upper- middle- class enclaves, where manicured lawns and stately homes and apartment buildings are enshrouded in a peaceful cocoon. The majority of all public U. S. By the end of 2. Delaware boasted more active business entities (over 1,0.

The city is also the headquarters of Du. Pont, which grew from a gunpowder manufacturer in 1. Teflon, Kevlar and nylon, among other inventions)—and the nexus of a dynasty. The du Pont family is the 1. Forbes, with 3,5. Drive 1. 5 minutes outside the city center and you’ll find sprawling landscapes studded with du Pont mansions, including Winterthur, a 1,0.

Longwood Gardens, which draws more than 1 million people each year; and Nemours Mansion, which has been called a “mini Versailles.”“Inside the same city, you have some of the poorest people and communities in the country—generations of black and brown families that have . And I’m from Harlem!”This other Wilmington is blighted with rundown, two- story brick row houses in high- crime neighborhoods like Hilltop, Eastside and Browntown. Some homes are vacant, their doors and windows boarded up. Many are rentals, which tends to attract a transient crowd, including drug dealers. Stoop after stoop, porch after porch, young black men sit and pass the time.

Homicide Detective Rod Demery has a very personal connection to crime. His mother was murdered, and his brother is a murderer. Every episode we'll watch Rod solve. Join the original Jack the Ripper tour and walk in the footsteps of history's most infamous character as you explore the old alleyways where the Whitechapel murders. When the telephone in my New York apartment woke me up at five o’clock in the morning on October 31, 1982, I sensed as I reached for the receiver that disaster loomed.

During the day, women corral children in the park. When the sun goes down, many blocks are pitch- black. Very few porch lights are on.“You have the world of big banking, the Du. Pont company and major law firms,” says State Prosecutor Kathleen Jennings, who grew up in Wilmington and now leads the Delaware Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. As she stepped out on the curb, a bullet sliced through her left knee, severing an artery. Moments earlier, Jermaine Laster, 3. In retaliation, he fired four gunshots down the block, missing his target but hitting Jazmine, turning her into the city’s 8.

The News Journal.“That’s what happens in our city,” Jennings says. There were a couple victims in there. He’s a drug dealer,” she adds, pointing to a young man on the sidewalk. A moment later: “See what he just said?” she asks, pointing to a different guy crossing the street. He was a homegrown candidate from Wilmington’s Riverside Housing projects, and he promised he wouldn’t “hug thugs.” Once in office, he divided the city into three sectors to enable police to exclusively patrol a given area, in hopes of solving more crimes and developing stronger relationships with residents.

The plan calls for approximately 6. When I ask Janvier how many officers typically patrol these sectors, she replies, “Depends. Absolutely nowhere near 6. The police force is authorized to have 3. A police academy, set to begin this fall to boost those numbers, was pushed back two months while the budget awaited approval. Williams talks a lot about reaching young people through the city’s recreational centers and scholarship, internship and jobs programs. It looked like the days of the Depression.

A mayor can’t do it all.”Not everyone is convinced the homicide unit can make a difference. The police can only police.

They can’t go to people’s homes and raise their kids for them. The homicide unit really is, in my opinion, shuffling..” She pauses, then tries again: “Any detective can handle a homicide. Dedicating a unit to homicide..” Another pause. She trails off, maybe because she can’t find the right words, or because she knows exactly what she wants to say but, in her new role as public information officer, she can’t. City Councilman Street is more blunt: “The community asks for . But it’s going to take more than the Wilmington Police Department and the homicide unit to turn around the city.” Chalk outlines and numbered cones mark spent shell casings following a shooting in the Browntown neighborhood of Wilmington on Nov.

I’m sitting in the back seat of a black SWAT team Tahoe. Cannon, who’s 3. 2, and Corporal Geiser, 3. Wilmington, and they’re letting me join them for a Saturday night ride- along. The Cadillac in front of us is clearly the source of the marijuana smoke, Cannon says, and we could be seconds away from a car chase. Geiser, who’s driving, flashes the police lights, and the car pulls over. Inside are two black men in their mid- to late 2.

Murder of Travis Alexander - Wikipedia. On June 4, 2. 00. Travis Victor Alexander (July 2. June 4, 2. 00. 8) was killed by his ex- girlfriend, Jodi Ann Arias (born July 9, 1. Alexander's house in Mesa, Arizona. Arias was convicted of first- degree murder on May 8, 2.

April 1. 3, 2. 01. Arias testified that she killed Alexander in self- defense. After his father's death in July 1. She and Alexander met in September 2.

PPL Services conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Alexander was a Mormon and on November 2.

Arias was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints in a ceremony at a Southern California Mormon church. Alexander had sustained 2. Horn further testified that Alexander . He was buried at the Olivewood Cemetery in Riverside, California. Among the missing objects was a . Colt pistol (ACP), which was never recovered.

She indicated she would return the car back to Budget in Redding. By June 3, Arias had driven south and was visiting friends in Southern California on her way to Utah for a PPL work's conference and to meet with Ryan Burns, a fellow PPL worker. By late evening on June 3, 2.

Arias had set out for Salt Lake City, Utah for the conference. Alexander missed an important conference call on the evening of June 4. On June 5, Arias arrives in Salt Lake City and participates in the last day of the conference. She called Alexander several times and left several voicemail messages for him. She also accessed Alexander's cell phone voice mail system. The rental clerk testified that the car was missing its floor mats and had red stains on its front and rear seats.

It could not be verified that the car had floor mats when Arias picked it up and any stains could not be verified since the car was cleaned before police could examine it. On June 9, having been unable to reach Alexander, a concerned group of his friends went to his home.

His roommates initially stated that he was out of town. After finding a key to Alexander's master bedroom, his friends entered the room and found large pools of blood in the hallway to the master bathroom where his body was discovered in the shower. In April, Alexander asked to change his travel companion to another female friend. Police were able to recover deleted images showing Arias and Alexander in sexually suggestive poses, taken at approximately 1: 4. June 4. The final photograph of Alexander alive was taken at 5: 2. Alexander was in the shower when the photo was taken. Photos taken moments later show an individual believed to be Alexander .

Arias pled not guilty on September 1. Two years after her arrest, Arias told police that she killed Alexander in self- defense, claiming that she had been a victim of domestic violence. Initially the prosecution told the defense attorneys that there were no available text messages sent or received by Alexander and then was ordered to turn over several hundred. Mesa police Detective Esteban Flores told defense attorneys that there was nothing .

During jury selection on December 2. Arias's defense attorneys argued that the prosecution was . Judge Stephens ruled that the prosecution had shown no bias in the jury selection. Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott, who argued that Alexander's death was a justifiable homicide committed in self- defense. She told him she had cut her hands on broken glass while working at a restaurant called Margaritaville. A detective testified no restaurant by that name had ever existed in the Yreka area. At the time, Arias was working at a restaurant called Casa Ramos.

In addition, in the final days before his death Alexander had called her a . She said that they eventually had vaginal sex, but less often. Alexander is heard on the tape telling Arias that ! She testified that Alexander secretly found young boys and girls sexually attractive and she tried to help him with these urges. Afterward, Arias said . This was the third different account of how Alexander's death had occurred that Arias had offered police. In the interview, she had said: .

You can mark my words on that. So I was extremely confident that no jury would convict me, because I didn't expect any of you to be here. I think she was not a good witness.

He said Arias was likely suffering from acute stress at the time of the killing, sending her body into a . In response to a juror question asking whether this scenario could occur even if this was a premeditated murder, as the prosecution contended, he responded: ? Samuels had previously testified he had compassion for Arias. Arias to move on from the relationship .

Alexander has been abusive to women. Instead, De. Marte said Arias suffered from borderline personality disorder, showing signs of immaturity and an . The employee said that according to Wal- Mart's records no one returned a five- gallon gas can on that date, and that Arias returned the gas can a week later rather than on June 3. Robert Geffner, who said that De.

Marte's borderline diagnosis was . He also said the tests indicated that she answered questions honestly, without lying.

Horn who testified further on the gunshot wound, and called Dr. Jill Hayes, a forensic neuro- psychologist, who disputed Geffner's testimony that the MMPI test was not geared toward diagnosing borderline personality disorder. The relationship, the relationship of chaos, that ended in chaos as well. There is nothing about what happened on June 4th in that bathroom that looks planned .. Couldn't it also be that after everything they went through in that relationship, that she simply snapped? Ultimately, if Miss Arias is guilty of any crime at all, it is the crime of manslaughter and nothing more. Nothing indicates that this is anything less than a slaughter.

There was no way to appease this woman who just wouldn't leave him alone. On April 3, a member of the jury was dismissed for . Out of twelve jurors, five jurors found her guilty of first- degreepremeditated murder, and seven jurors found her guilty of both first- degree premeditated murder and felony murder.

People outside the courtroom began cheering and chanting. Arias' attorneys, who had repeatedly asked to step down from the case, gave only brief opening statements and closing arguments, in which they said the adrenaline rushing through Alexander's body may have prevented him from feeling much pain during his death. Prosecutor Martinez showed photos of the corpse and crime scene to the jury, then paused for two minutes of silence to illustrate how long he said it took for Alexander to die at Arias' hands. After less than three hours of consideration, the jury determined that Arias was eligible for the death penalty. Arias acknowledged that her plea for life was a reversal of remarks she made to a TV reporter shortly after her conviction, when she said she preferred the death penalty. At one point, she held up a white T- shirt with the word .

She also said she would donate her hair to Locks of Love while in prison, and had already done so three times while in jail. I was hoping they would see things for what they are. I felt really awful for my family and what they were thinking. The subsequent jury reached an 8- 4 decision in favor of the death penalty. We're charged with presuming innocence, right? But she was on the stand for so long, there were so many contradicting stories. He said he was confident an impartial jury could be seated, but it was possible that lawyers and the victim's family could agree to scrap the trial in favor of a life sentence with no parole.

That's what it feels like. But I still believe in the system to a degree, so we'll just go through that if that happens. It is not incumbent upon Ms. Arias' defense counsel to resolve this case. Flores testified at the 2.

Alexander had been shot in the forehead first. Contrary to Flores' testimony at the 2. Alexander; given his extensive defense wounds, including stab marks and slashes to his hands, arms and legs, it was not likely the shot came first. Flores denied perjury and said during his trial testimony that he just misunderstood what the medical examiner told him. In the motion the defense team contended . The motion also alleged that Martinez chose to release evidence and to pose for pictures with his fans on the steps of the courthouse. The attorneys claimed Arias was in a position where she could not present a complete defense, and the only constitutional course was to declare a mistrial.

The motion alleged that a defense witness who had been due to testify the preceding Friday, the 1. Arias' behalf. The day before the filing, the witness contacted counsel for Arias, stating that she was no longer willing to testify due to these threats. The motion continued, . Nurmi had asked the high court to throw out the aggravating factor of cruelty because the judge had allowed it to go forward based on a different theory of how the murder occurred.

The lead detective originally claimed that the gunshot occurred first, followed by the stabbing and slitting of the throat; based on that theory, Stephens ruled there was probable cause to find the crime had been committed in an especially cruel manner, an aggravating factor under state law. Subsequent to this initial hearing, the medical examiner testified that the gunshot occurred postmortem. Opening statements were given, and a hearing on evidence was held. Prosecution witness Amanda Webb, called in the first trial to rebut Arias' testimony that she returned a gas can to Walmart on June 3, 2. Arias' attorneys requested a mistrial.

Most Shameful & Akward Moments In Film watch online in english with english subtitles in 1440. Stephens denied the request, read additional instructions to the jury, and ordered them to resume deliberations. Sentencing was scheduled for April 1. Stephens having the option to sentence Arias to either life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, or with the possibility of parole after 2.

Arias' attorney stated this was about 1/3 of the amount requested. As a result of the move for . Though Judge Stephens’ decision has been overruled, . No jury is going to convict me. He also offered Arias legal advice on how she could avoid the maximum sentence.