Dying before the heat

The old cliché about crime rising with the heat proved all too true for Sacramento homicide detectives, who have now stood over 10 bodies in the last six weeks.

The fatal events started May 1 in Rio Linda, when sheriff’s deputies responded to the 6700 block of West Second Street to find an 18-year-old male dying from stab wounds to his chest. According to sheriff’s officials, the teen had been involved in a fight with 18-year-old Nicholas Joseph Scott, who allegedly pulled a blade. Scott was arrested for murder.

On May 5, sheriff’s detectives were called to the 4400 block of Greenholme Drive, in North Highlands, to find another 18-year-old, Jordan Pannell, suffering from gunshot wounds to his upper body. Pannell soon died. Investigators arrested 18-year-old Kejhonne Henderson for the slaying.

On May 11, a double-homicide brought sheriff’s authorities to a strip mall on the 5700 block of Fruitridge Road, in the south county. Authorities said 20-year-old Hieu Hoang and 21-year-old Robert Saterfield gunned down 15-year-old Sergio Murti and 19-year-old Daniel Murti. Hoang and Saterfield are charged with murder. On May 14, sheriff’s detectives also opened a probe into the murder of a 50-year-old man found shot in a homeless camp near Jack Sheldon Park in Orangevale.

On May 22, the warming trend reached the city of Sacramento, where two men were discovered with gunshot wounds inside a house in Del Paso Heights. One died of his injuries.

Over the next two weeks, city detectives fielded three more homicides—one a stabbing victim on Mack Road in the south city, another a shooting victim found in a burning car on 24th Street, and the third a man shot dead on 33rd Street in Oak Park. Councilman Jay Schenirer announced a community meeting following the last homicide, which occurred June 12 in his district.

No arrests have been announced in the above cases.

Sheriff’s investigators are looking into two more fatal shootings this month, of a man found June 8 in a walnut orchard off Twin Cities Road, and another man found four days later in the driver’s seat of his car in East Parkway.