Rochester, New York: Murder as a Family Affair!

Blood is thicker than water.

It is also harder to get out of the carpet.

As of this writing, Rochester has just celebrated its sixth homicide for the year so far.

Homicide has become the new norm for our dying city.

We are the deadliest city in New York State and the ninth deadliest in the USA.

That is no mean accomplishment for a mid-sized city of 200,000 souls. 

We have become accustomed to violent car jackings occurring almost daily; of deadly feral urban humanoids driving along streets, shooting into houses, unconcerned about who might be wounded or killed; of revenge killings; of robberies and drug deals gone bad, resulting in corpses littering our streets and sidewalks; of homicides that were the results of mistaken identities or of passers-by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Unfortunately, when caught, the murderers usually have arrest records as thick as phone books, which reflect our government and judiciary's unwillingness to protect law abiding citizens from such violent scum.

Yet what seems to bother people who have been hardened by Rochester's "Murder Marathon" is when homicide occurs within the family, as though incidents of that nature are as old as recorded Western Civilization.

Half of our six homicides this year have been family murders.

In the ancient Egyptian religion, Seth murdered his brother Osiris, cutting his body into pieces and scattering it throughout the world, forcing Isis to search for the fragments of her husband's body in order to restore him.

In the Judeo-Christian religion, Cain killed Abel out of jealousy as Abel found favor with God.

The ancient Greek myths have numerous instances of murder and mayhem within the family.

According to Hesiod's "Cosmogony," the Titan Kronos castrated his father Uranus who, in turn, cursed Kronos by saying that one of his children would overturn him.

Kronos proceeded to swallow each of his newborn children whole.

Elektra persuaded her bother Orestes to kill their mother, Clytemnestra, for murdering their father, Agamemnon, when he returned from the Trojan War.

Medea, in order to help Jason flee with the Golden Fleece, killed her brother and scattered his body parts, forcing her father to delay his pursuit of them in order to collect the dead pieces of his son to give him a proper burial.

Medea later killed her children by Jason in order to spite him for leaving her for another woman.

As for more recent instances of murder as a family affair, Kings John I and Richard III murdered their nephews, who had better rights to the throne than they had.

Henry VII and Henry VIII also murdered as many relatives as possible with better claims to the throne than the Tudors had.

Louis X of France had his adulterous wife Marguerite, who had been imprisoned for her crime by his father, Philip IV, strangled so that he might marry again and have undeniably legitimate issue by a new wife.

Tsar Peter the Great of Russia had his only son Alexis tortured to death for presumed plots to depose his father.

Yes, murder as a family affair is as common as pig tracks, even in Rochester.

On New Year's Day, Jellia Lockhart was involved in a hit-and-run accident which killed her sister, Charlaura Lockhart who was in the second car with a man, who survived the crash.

Jellia promptly fled the scene on foot, leaving her dead sister.

"Sisters, sisters! There were never such devoted sisters!"

On Tuesday, January 24, one-year-old A'Mias died after having been beaten by his mother, Bryasia Love, 26.

There were multiple skull fractures; bruises to his head, face and neck; a laceration to the top of his head and his liver and severe damage to his eyes.

Her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter also suffered "significant injuries."

There's nothing quite like a mother's love, is there?

And yet, while Child Protective Services did NOT have an open case on Bryasia Love, both the County Executive and the District Attorney stated that this home WAS known to CPS.

Hmmm....

Then, on January 25, 39-year-old Detric Marshall stabbed his father, Charles Marshall, 70, to death.

Detric was living in his father's house and was on probation for a drug conviction, while there was an outstanding bench warrant for his arrest for failing to appear in court for a DWI charge.

"Oh, my papa, to me he was so wonderful!"

So, what's the sad conclusion I can bring this blog to?

That murder, like charity, begins at home?

Or that the world has been going batshit crazy for a very long time?

At any rate, it's just business as usual in Rochester.