Prince William murder rate rebounds

By Uriah A. Kiser

Published: January 4, 2009

Though hailed as a major highlight of the 2007 annual crime report when it was down, the murder rate in Prince William County was back up last year.

In 2008 a total of 12 people were murdered in the county, according to the latest crime statistics.

The number is up from nine the previous year.

The latest number is down from a recent high of 16 murders in 2006, and 13 in 2005, the statistics state.

The number of reported rapes in the county also is down from 28 in 2007 to 25 last year.

When police tabulated incidents in the “crimes against property” category, they found the number of burglaries in the county to be down from nearly 996 in 2007 to just over 730 cases last year. There were 272 robberies.

But murders are the first category on the list, and residents will most likely remember 2008 to be a violent year in Prince William.

Fresh on the minds of Dale City residents are the killings of Jean Smith and her son Jim Smith, who were both killed on Dec. 19 inside their home.

They were the last people to be killed in the county, and are the only case of 2008 that police charged a juvenile with murder.

Seventeen-year-old Xavier Pinckney, who lived less than a third of a mile from where the two were killed, will appear in court Jan. 12.

It will be Pinckney’s first appearance since police said he confessed to the killings.

The current murder charges against him are expected to be upgraded to capital murder that day.

A week of public memorials following the deaths of the Dale City mother and her son.

September also proved to be a bloody month in the county.

Barbara Jean Bosworth, 61, of Alexandria, was shopping at Springfield Mall on Sept.13 when she was allegedly abducted by two Dale City teens.

Police said 18-year-old Keith Baskerville and 19-year-old Lutchman Chandler took Bosworth to Montclair, made her withdraw money from an ATM, and then forced her back into her car.

A store employee called police after Bosworth passed along a message that something was wrong.

A police officer in the area immediately pursued the car, however during the chase the driver lost control and ran into some trees near the intersection of U.S. 1 and Neabsco Mills Road.

Bosworth was thrown from the car and died at the scene. Chandler died in the hospital from his injures.

Baskerville has been charged with felony murder.

Earlier that morning, 25-year-old Corey Best of 11015 Bacon Race Road was killed in an apparent drive-by shooting outside of his home.

Police arrested Jerome Anderson Hodge, 25, of Northton Court in Dale City, in connection with the slaying.

Neighbors said the two were old high school friends who got into an argument at a night club prior to the killing.

Just days later Robert P. Phillips was gunned down outside of his home on Bayside Avenue in Woodbridge, and police immediately issued an arrest warrant for Ronald Kendall.

Two days later, on Sept. 18, police received what would be a bogus tip that Kendall was holed up in a house less than a mile from the murder scene.

SWAT teams surrounded the Woodbridge neighborhood, and closed a portion of Culpeper Drive. They also locked down one middle and two elementary schools.

Some parents panicked and swarmed nearby Fred Lynn Middle School, where children from the two elementary schools were bused.

It would be after 10 p.m. before the last child was picked up by their parents, school officials said at the time — making it more than a 10-hour school day for some children.

Kendall turned himself in to police in Richmond nearly two weeks later.

Staff writer Uriah A. Kiser can be reached at 703-878-8065.