PLATTSBURGH — Clinton County has seen a troubling uptick in the number of homicides the past few years and many are wondering why.
In 2024 alone, Clinton County had six homicides: Miranda Wade and Karen Lindsay in December, Jahfari Joseph in December, Markus Dixon in September, Krysten Remy in April and Lisa Dashnaw in March.
“This has probably been the highest volume of homicides that we’ve had, in the last year,” Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said recently.
Wylie said the majority of 2024’s homicides were domestic related. That’s a trend seen throughout the state and country for some time now, he said.
According to New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, domestic homicides, defined as “a murder or non-negligent manslaughter in which the victim was known to have a domestic relationship with the offender, such as being an intimate partner or other family member,” accounted for 16% of all homicides reported in the state in 2022.
“One of the things that I have a really great concern for and try to get the message out, is that we have a lot of domestic violence cases here in Clinton County, throughout the state, throughout Vermont, throughout the country, and you’re seeing, a majority of homicides are domestic violence,” Wylie said.
Drugs, and the increasing number of them entering into the community, either from Canada or the New York City area, are also playing a big part.
Clinton County Sheriff David Favro said drugs are leading to “many of these evils” being seen in recent years.
“As far as the overall numbers, we have seen a pretty notable increase in homicides in the last couple of years in the Clinton County area,” he said.
“There isn’t an exact science as to whether it’s domestic incidents, but quite a few of them have been related to drugs … that’s been the biggest thing. Our message to the people is … to continue to keep your eyes and ears open, and when people see heavy traffic, something unusual, report it to your local police agency so that we can look into it and hopefully get ahead of things before it gets too bad.”
Favro, who has been in law enforcement for over 42 years now, said Clinton County’s unique geographic location between New York City and the border makes it susceptible to these types of drug problems because that’s where the traffic goes.
“It comes up here to market and it goes down there to buy,” he said.
Asked what measures they are taking to curb the drug problem, Favro said firstly, in recent years, his department and other agencies in the area have worked hard to strengthen their relationships so they can tackle these problems together.
“The police relationships are stronger now than I’ve ever seen which is a good thing to be able to report to the public. They need to know that the agencies are working very, very well together and cooperatively as one sharing a lot more information resources and bodies,” he said.
“And what the public can do for us is, if they have information … even if it’s a family member, it’s important, if you want to help that family member, a little tough love comes in, get them involved in this system so that we can mandate services and help to clean them up before they end up with with an OD or involved in a homicide that’s drug related.”
However, New York’s bail reform policy has made doing their job effectively more challenging, he said.
“It begs the question,” he said about whether or not he thinks bail reform is responsible for some of these homicides.
“That’s one anecdote, and the other also is … from when we all grew up as children, there were consequences. You touch a hot stove, you’re going to get burned; so if you go out and steal from a store, you’re going to get arrested, you’re going to go to jail.”
Favro said there’s no consequences for crime anymore. Many times, he said the same person is getting arrested and released multiple times.
“They get more brazen realizing that, ‘OK, let’s see, I started with shoplifting, then I started with a possession of substances or possession of a firearm, and now I’m going to go to use the firearm,’” Favro said.
“They didn’t see a consequence early on, so they think no matter what they do, there’s very little to no consequence and I think that just makes the problem grow. It certainly makes the attitude for the problem grow, which is a concern to all of us.”