Warren County not such a violent place
Anyone glancing over the front-page headlines in Wednesday’s edition would probably think of Warren County as the Murder Capital of the World.
With the death of Junior Tanner being treated by investigators as a homicide and the brutal beating death of Donald Lawson obviously a murder, Warren County didn’t appear to be such a pleasant place to call home.
Fortunately, such stories are far from the norm. While the area may be quickly gaining notoriety as the Meth Capital of the World, murders have been few and far between.
In the case of this week’s events, we can only hope the people responsible are brought to justice. It appears to be a fairly straightforward case against Robert Christian, the man accused to killing Mr. Lawson. He was reportedly lying on top of the victim covered in blood.
If he is in fact convicted, we hope he is placed behind bars for life. A man who can snap and beat another person to death is obviously someone we don’t need in our community.
It should also be noted the murder took place in Spencer and not in Warren County. While it is an atrocious act, it does not count toward Warren County’s violent crime statistics.
As far as Warren County is concerned, murders haven’t been as frequent as they may seem. Due to the high-profile publicity these crimes command, murder may appear to be more prevalent in our community than it really is.
Earlier this year in April we had the misfortune of reporting the stabbing death of Robert Webb. One of his best friends, Jeremiah Ginn, is accused of the murder.
Before that you have to go back almost two full years to July 1 of 2000. That was when Thomas Lance is said to have murdered Lee Joseph Neal.
It was that same year in May when Eric Sullivan and Margie Farley are accused by prosecutors of collaborating to murder Louie Johnson. They have both been charged and are awaiting trial.
Before that, on July 30, 1999, was the extremely upsetting triple murders on Myers Lane where two young girls lost their lives. Thus far Doug Myers and Johnny Lewis have been convicted for their roles in the murders of Dianne Watts, Jessica Watts and Chelsie Smith. The trial of Clementine Myers, believed to be a key conspirator, will be held later this year.
Those are the murders which have taken place in this county over the last five years. Before that, you have to go back to 1996 and the unsolved murder of Lela Mae Adcock to find a murder in Warren County.
If you add it all up, we have endured seven murders over the last five-and-a-half years, or just over one a year. Obviously, we hope for better. We would like to look back and not see a single murder take place, but we also realize that is highly unlikely.
If you were shocked and saddened to see two probable murders on the front page of the Standard, so were we. Fortunately, we have a relatively safe community where such actions don’t occur frequently.