Just after 1 a.m. Tuesday, Leanne Freeman was found lying in a pool of blood on an isolated road in the Port Lands. She had been shot; she died a few hours later

On Wednesday, a man’s body was found in an SUV on a leafy street near Dufferin and College Sts.

Two bodies in as many days.

And yet, Toronto is on its way to becoming the safest it has been in a quarter of a century.

That is, if December goes well.

In 1986, 40 slayings were recorded. To date this year, 42 homicides have been reported, down from 86 in 2007.

“It is a dramatic decline,” said Rosemary Gartner, a criminologist at the University of Toronto who has studied the issue for many years.

There are no clear-cut reasons, she added. “It would take long-term analysis to determine the factors at play.”

The declining trend in crime, especially homicides, has been documented in cities across Canada and the United States since the mid-’90s. A recent study by Statistics Canada shows double-digit declines in Criminal Code offences in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.

Across the border, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has recorded steady decreases in property and violent crime as well as homicides in New York, Detroit and Chicago over the past 10 years.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has credited his brainchild, the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) for much of the decline in crime.

The community-based policing strategy has officers patrol by bike or foot and make an effort to get to know locals and business owners by name. It was launched in 2006 — the year after 80 homicides were recorded — with $7 million of provincial funding and has been adopted by more than a dozen forces in the province.

While Toronto police declined to comment on the crime rate until the year end, a homicide detective told the Star, “it is a perfect storm of efforts. Certain violent people have been locked up so they can’t further victimize people,” he said on condition of anonymity.

Of the 42 homicides in Toronto to date this year, 23 were shootings and four were stabbings. The circumstances of the others have not been released.

More than 50 per cent of the homicides were in the west end, and eight were in 31 Division, which lies west of Keele St., between Wilson and Steeles Aves.

One theory about the decline in crime, especially homicides, cites the aging demographic.

The average age in Toronto in 2001 was 35.7. In 2007, it was 37.

“I think aging contributes to a 5 to 10 per cent in the drop,” said Gartner. “But it’s not responsible for all the decline.”

She said homicide rates are decreasing across North America for most age groups. “Why is that? No one has been able to address it completely yet.”

The drop in homicides has been uniform in Canada and the U.S. so there’s clearly no local explanation for it, said Gartner.

“It’s not just Toronto police’s doing.”

Fewer homicides doesn’t mean they are all getting solved.

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In January, the Star’s Betsy Powell reported that 2010 was the worst year in Toronto’s history for solving homicides as fewer than half the cases resulted in criminal charges.

Only 44 per cent of cases were solved and at least one veteran detective admitted that police are struggling to solve murders.

Toronto homicides

2011: 42 to date

2010: 61

2009: 62

2008: 70

2007: 86

2006: 70

2005: 80

2004: 64

2003: 67

2002: 62

2001: 61