The Smithfield Police Department and Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s Office investigated five fatal shootings in 2023. It’s the highest number the largely rural county of 40,000 residents has seen in a decade.

Virginia State Police publish an annual report, titled Crime in Virginia, which details crime statistics statewide and by city and county for the prior year. Police released the 2023 report on Aug. 20.

According to Crime in Virginia reports dating back to 2013, the only year prior to 2023 when  Smithfield and Isle of Wight County collectively reported more than one murder or manslaughter was 2017. That year’s report lists five murder arrests, but only two murders.

One of the 2017 arrests, according to The Smithfield Times’ reporting from that year, was the result of renewed investigation into a cold case more than 10 years old. At least three of the other four were in connection with a double murder in Rushmere.

Statewide, Virginia’s murder rate fell 16.3% from 621 crimes in 2022 to 520 last year, or from 7.14 per 100,000 to 5.96, according to the 2023 Crime in Virginia report. Men ages 18-34 accounted for 40.6% of homicide victims statewide and 48.8% of identified suspects. Nearly half of the state’s homicides occurred at a residence.

Isle of Wight’s 2023 murder rate, while double the state’s at 12.23 per 100,000, is skewed upward by the county’s relatively low number of residents compared to Virginia’s more populous localities, said Capt. Tommy Potter, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

The city of Suffolk, for example, which borders Isle of Wight to the east and has just over 100,000 residents, has a rate of 10.92 per 100,000 based on 11 reported murders in 2023, or twice as many as Isle of Wight.

“When you look at surrounding jurisdictions, we do not see the level of homicide-related cases that those localities consistently do each year,” Potter said.

Surry County, which borders Isle of Wight to the west and has only around 6,500 residents, saw a single murder in 2023 but reported a rate of 15.33 per 100,000 based on its low population.

“Isle of Wight County is a very safe place to live and I fully credit the law enforcement agencies within the county for the professional work they do to maintain that level of safety and security for all our citizens,” Potter said.

Law enforcement agencies believe the five 2023 Isle of Wight murders, all of which were committed with a firearm, to be unconnected. They began on Jan. 13 of that year when the family of 18-year-old Aonesty Selby of Williamsburg, following location pings from the missing teenager’s cellphone, found her shot to death on a dirt logging pack nearly 4 miles outside the town of Windsor. Three days later, sheriff’s deputies and Newport News Police arrested and charged 23-year-old Andarius McClelland of Newport News with the crime.

Three months later, on April 21, a deputy responding to a reported cardiac arrest found 54-year-old Steven March lying dead on top of his bed in his Carrsville home, and initially attributed the death to natural causes. It wasn’t until days later, when March’s body was taken to a funeral home, that investigators noticed a gunshot wound under March’s chin and discovered a shell casing next to his bed. By April 27, deputies had charged 74-year-old Mark Honaker with the crime. Honaker pled guilty on June 24 of this year and is due back in court for sentencing on Sept. 4, according to court records.

Just under two months after Honaker’s arrest, Smithfield Police found former Smithfield High School football standout Kyonne Edwards, 22, and his girlfriend, 21-year-old A’Shoneya Williams, shot to death in the couple’s unit in Jersey Park Apartments. According to Police Chief Alonzo Howell, it’s the town’s first known double homicide, and one that remains unsolved.

Three months later, on Nov. 2, sheriff’s deputies responded to a reported shooting in the 12000 block of Smiths Neck Road near the Jones Creek mobile home park and boat ramp. There, they found 30-year-old Marvin Guillaume-Sam of Flushing, New York, who later succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News. Deputies charged 22-year-old Travis Lewis Wilson of New York’s Brooklyn borough, whom they said was “known to live off-and-on with family in Carrollton,” with the crime. Wilson, after evading law enforcement for nearly four months, was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service on Feb. 29 of this year.

Isle of Wight’s outlook based on the 2023 Crime in Virginia report isn’t all bad. Drug and narcotic violations, while up since 2022, have trended downward 45% since 2019 based on reports by the Sheriff’s Office, Smithfield Police, State Police and the town of Windsor’s Police Department. 

Smithfield and Isle of Wight are each members of the Meherrin Drug Task Force, a multi-agency body overseen by VSP that investigates regional drug and gang activity.

Drug incidents investigated by VSP alone in Isle of Wight increased nearly threefold, from 10 in 2022 to 39 in 2023. These cases “may be local narcotic cases that are investigated by members of our agency assigned to the State Police task force,” Potter said.

“Narcotic investigations often span several months and while a case may be initiated in 2023, it might be 2024 before it is finalized and becomes a stat,” Potter added.

Isle of Wight County’s three reported drug equipment violations for 2023 reflect a 70% drop from the 10 reported across all four agencies in 2022 and an 84% drop from the 19 reported in 2020.

Sex crimes, including rape, forcible fondling and pornography offenses, are also down 39% from 2019.

Shoplifting, however, is on the rise, with 93 incidents reported across all four agencies. It’s a 60% rise over the 58 reported in 2022 and an 82% uptick from the 51 in 2019.

Howell, earlier this year, said his department had investigated 18 separate larcenies at the South Church Street ABC store in Smithfield from January 2023 through March of this year.

“Shoplifting has been on the increase due to a number of thefts from Virginia ABC stores throughout the region including Isle of Wight County,” Potter said. “This has been an ongoing issue.”