UPDATE: The criminal homicide number has been updated to include three additional killings including Daniel Hambrick.

NASHVILLE — Criminal homicides were down about 24 percent this year in Nashville over the year prior, Metro Nashville Police Department records show.

In 2018, 88 killings took place — a drop from 2017, when 111 people were slain.

The 2017 total was the largest in the city since 112 people died in 1997 — the highest number of criminal homicides in modern city history, Nashville police records show. The lowest number took place in 2014 when 41 people were killed.

"The significant decrease in homicides is something we should all feel good about," said Thomas Mulgrew, spokesman for Nashville Mayor David Briley. "As long as we continue to work together as a community to make Nashville the safest city in the country, we are confident this decline in homicides will continue."

Police said in early January they have cleared 65.8 percent of the department's 2018 criminal homicide cases.

The national murder clearance rate – the calculation of cases that end with an arrest or a suspect who can’t be caught – fell to 59.4 percent in 2016, the lowest since the FBI has tracked the issue.

Included in last year's killings, 25-year-old Daniel Hambrick was killed by a Nashville police officer in July.

Prosecutors have filed a criminal homicide charge against 25-year-old Andrew Delke, caught on video shooting Hambrick in the back as he ran away during a foot pursuit in North Nashville. Delke was later indicated, decommissioned, and police Chief Steve Anderson said an internal investigation into Delke's conduct remains open.

Delke was granted $25,000 bond and remains an employee of MNPD, although he has been placed on desk duty after being decommissioned in September 2018. According to court documents, the internal MNPD investigation into Delke’s actions has been suspended pending the outcome of the criminal case.

Of the more than seven dozen victims last year, 14 died in domestic-related killings. The most recent took place last month on a Sunday when two men fatally shot two women within hours of one another in separate killings.

Jermaine Bailey, charged with criminal homicide, was hospitalized at Vanderbilt University Medical Center with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head after police said he fatally shot his ex-girlfriend Shalinda Gordon, 42, at her Netherlands Drive home.

Before the shooting, Bailey, 39, had been free on $1,000 bond in connection with a harassment charge against him, Davidson County court records show. According to an affidavit filed Nov. 7, Gordon had an order of protection filed against Bailey.

In the hours prior, police said, 49-year-old Kirk Williams shot Lawanda Steele-Williams, 53, in the kitchen of their home in the 700 block of Rocky Mountain Court before killing himself.

Steele-Williams, a corrections officer, was a six-year employee of the Davidson County Sheriff's Office.

A motive in either shooting was not immediately known.

Killings by precinct

Police divide the city into eight precincts with their own commanders and compile data for each. MNPD's Youth Services Division and the Homicide Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit also investigate killings. Here's how many of them each precinct worked:

North Precinct, 18

East Precinct, 15

South Precinct, 21

Hermitage Precinct, 10

Midtown Precinct, 6

Madison Precinct, 9

West Precinct, 6

Central Precinct, 0

Youth Services, 1

Cold Case, 2

Of those killed, 68 were men. About two-thirds of them were African-American. About 87 percent died as a result of gunfire.

Three died as a result of stabbing. Two people died from strangulation, and the others were a result of blunt force trauma or other means.

The youngest gunshot victims were two sisters, ages 5 and 8. The youngest child killed was 3 years old and died as a result of abuse.

Of those killed in 2018, nine were age 17 or younger — down six from the year prior.

The bloodiest month was September, when 11 people died.

December followed closed behind, with 10 people killed.

The domestic killings

The year's first domestic-related killing involved a triple homicide and took place on Jan. 12 in Nashville's Cumberland Gardens neighborhood.

While playing in the front yard of their home in the 2600 block of Jenkins Street, police said, sisters Samaii and Sammarre Daniel, ages 5 and 8, were gunned down by their 25-year-old stepbrother.

Their mother, Darnykka Daniel McCray, testified in a Davidson County courtroom that her stepson Queshan Brooks had stopped by for a visit that day. While the girls were outside, he pulled a pistol on McCray and clenched his jaw, she said.

He shot twice, she said, hitting her in the face and the hand. Then, without a word, he headed for the door. As blood began to pour down her face, McCray said, she heard gunshots and a child's cries from the front yard.

By the time McCray made it outside, Samaii was already lying lifeless on the ground. Then, McCray said, she watched as Brooks aimed a gun at Sammarre's head and pulled the trigger.

Both girls were dead when police arrived. The gunman fled, and by the time police arrested Brooks later that day, investigators said he also had killed 70-year-old Robert Payne and wounded Patrick Hancock during a carjacking nearby in North Nashville.

A motive in the killing remains under investigation.

Other domestic killings included a nephew killing his aunt (Feb. 3), a boyfriend killing his girlfriend (March 12), a brother killing his brother (May 24), a son killing his father (May 27), a husband killing his wife (June 23) and a woman killing her mother and sister (Nov. 27).

The Cobra

This summer, East Nashville was on edge after police said three men went on a shooting crime spree.

In late October, indictments from the Davidson County grand jury were unsealed, charging Demontrey Logsdon, 20, and Horace Williamson III, 27, with first-degree murder and especially aggravated robbery in The Cobra bar shooting that killed Bartley Teal, 33, and Jaime Sarrantonio, 30.

A third suspect, Lacory Lytle, 24, was indicted on charges of identity theft and fraudulent use of a credit card that was taken in the robbery.

The indictments came more than a month after police announced the three men as people of interest in the case. Police said they had spent "hundreds of hours" building their murder case, including tracking location data on the suspects' cell phones and reviewing surveillance footage.

Police said Logston and Williamson robbed four people around 3:30 a.m. Aug. 17 outside the Gallatin Avenue bar. Investigators said they shot and killed two of the robbery victims: Teal and Sarrantonio.

Police have said they were looking strongly at a potential connection with 31-year-old Vanderbilt University Medical Center employee Kendall Rice's death on Aug. 14. He was shot and killed while walking to a bus stop on his way to work in Madison.

Roughly 15 minutes after Rice was fatally shot, another man was shot and critically wounded during an apparent robbery at Falcon View Apartments in Madison. Police have not released that man's identity.

Detectives have also not ruled out a connection to the shooting that left a 39-year-old woman paralyzed in Inglewood on Aug. 8. The woman's husband is a crew member for the band OneRepublic. Police have also not released her name.

The Waffle House shooting

Perhaps the greatest fear came when a mass shooting rocked the Nashville community and left four people dead and others injured when, police said, a masked man fired 30 rounds from his AR-15 rifle at an Antioch Waffle House.

Police said that, just before 3:34 a.m. on April 22, 29-year-old Travis Reinking began firing outside and then moved into the restaurant at 3571 Murfreesboro Pike. The report said he continued shooting inside for 27 seconds before customer James Shaw Jr. pulled the gun away.

Reinking, naked except for a green bomber jacket and the AR-15, ran from the restaurant on foot, according to police, sparking a 34-hour manhunt before he was arrested.

He remained jailed without bond Tuesday and has been charged with four counts of criminal homicide in the deaths of Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29; Joe R. Perez, 20; Akilah Dasilva, 23; and DeEbony Groves, 21.

Groves mother, Shirl Baker of Gallatin, said she and several other mothers who lost children in the massacre, including Trisha Anne Perez, of Kyle, Texas, chat through a group text every other week and usually more when a court hearing in Reinking’s case is looming.

Baker said the chat is encouraging, often with each of them checking in on one another or talking about lawyers and the case.

“I talk to God every day. I have a lot of breakdown moments," Baker said. "I cry every morning. Sometimes I cry all the way to work. It sometimes helps me feel like a weight has been lifted.”

Baker has pictures of her daughter scattered throughout her living room. She said she goes into the living room each morning and talks to her daughter.

“The whole thing that really weighs me down is I’ll never have grandkids," Baker said. "She loved kids. Death is harsh but when it’s a younger person who had their whole life ahead of them, it’s (catastrophic).”

Baker has attended every court hearing for Reinking, and said she'll attend every future one.

"In my daughter's honor, I plan on attending every hearing," Baker said. "Since I am not God, I can not determine Travis' destiny. But I can still trust my God to fight my battles."

By the numbers

Last year's criminal homicide victims:

Jan. 6: Davario Kendricks, 20

Jan. 8: Nathan McDade, 36

Jan. 12: Samaii Daniel, 5

Jan. 12: Sammaree Daniel, 8

Jan. 12: Robert Payne, 70

Jan. 15: Maria Brown, 29

Jan. 15: Jose Gutierrez, 16

Jan. 23: Marcus Lee, 26

Jan. 23: Ronnie Tunstill, 20

Jan. 23: Thomas Howard, 15

Feb. 3: Tivvis Garrison, 47

Feb. 6: Robert Harper , 50

Feb. 7: Jeremiah Shelton, 15

Feb. 12: Marvin Hughes, 39

Feb. 19: Marquice Miles, 25

Feb. 20: Shamar Lewis, 34

Feb. 24: Charlie Brown Jr, 20

March 12: Nicole Lee Stephens, 39

March 20: Hysen Krqeli, 25

Marxh 28, Terry Adams, 27

April 2: James R. Brown, 41

April 22: Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29

April 22: Joe R. Perez, 20

April 22: DeEbony Groves, 21

April 22: Akilah Dasilva, 23

April 30: Shay Jones, 45

May 1: Marqondis Thompson, 21

May 3: Demarco Church, 22

May 4: Jacqueline Johnson, 32

May 11: Cesar Reza, 24

May 15: Alfred Jenkins, 54

May 24: Kevin Ross, 37

May 27: Laylani Stevens, 3

May 27: Michael Goff Jr, 57

May 28: Alan Edwards, 61

June 2: Anthony Breadfort Jr., 25

June 2: Joel Paavola, 46

June 12: Dhargham Ateia, 27

June 14: Laquan Link, 16

June 23: Tonya Davis, 42

June 28: D'Twaun Moore, 24

July 9: Donna Adams, 46

July 10: Henry Oscar Smith, 26

July 10: Daniel Shields, 30

July 10: Beverly Hicks, 55

July 10: Quintin Brooks, 24

July 12: Alando Harris Jr, 22

July 15: Frazier Lumpkins, 66

July 17: Adrian Montgomery, 27

July 18: Antonio Maurice Batts, 40

July 26: Daniel Hambrick, 25

Aug. 8: Deion Woodruff, 23

Aug. 11: Craig Crisp, 24

Aug. 14: Kendall Rice, 31

Aug. 17: Bartley Teal, 33

Aug. 18: Jaime Sarrantoni, 30

Aug. 21: Visanh Vilayvanh, 48

Aug. 25: Glen Young, 59

Aug. 26: Mansfield Rutherford, 22

Sept. 1: Eliezer De La Cruz, 21

Sept. 2: Jonathan Zeltner, 19

Sept. 16: Dequinta Young, 24

Sept. 16: Michael Battle, 23

Sept. 17: Miles Hunter, 17

Sept. 25: Arthur Gordon Jr., 48

Sept. 26: Jose Luis Vergara, 27

Sept. 29: Tonya Michelle Pack, 47

Sept. 30: Mario Alberto Garcia Lopez, 34

Sept. 30: Joe Ivory Johnson, 31

Oct. 9: Melinda Squires, 46

Oct. 10: Geovany Hernandez, 14

Oct. 13: Frank Blair, 40

Oct. 13: Savitri Lyons, 48

Oct. 14: Brandon J. Adams, 18

Oct. 29: Erik Helffenstein, 45

Nov. 3: Quincy Brown, 19

Nov. 21: Rachel Andrews, 97

Nov. 21: Barbara Wenn Andrews, 68

Nov. 29: Ethan Love, 29

Dec. 6: Dontae Drew, 18

Dec. 14: Rico Boyce, 27

Dec. 15: Tyler Bradley, 21

Dec. 16: Shalinda Gordon, 42

Dec. 16: LaWanda Steele-Williams, 53

Dec. 19: Tyreese Southern, 19

Dec. 24: Amanuel Adane, 20

Dec. 25: Henry Campbell, 28

Source: Metro Nashville Police Department

*Not included in Metro police records

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