Homicide

Spc. Wooster Rancy, 21, faces charges of murder and obstructing justice in the Oct. 20 death of 23-year-old Army Sgt. Sarah Roque at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.

Homicides in St. Louis dropped slightly between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of this year. There were 109 in that period last year compared to 106 in 2024. While national totals are down more relatively, the city is still on track to see its lowest number of killings since 2014.

Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board records show Sean Grayson worked for six law enforcement agencies around central Illinois in four year.

Former Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson, who is now charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Sonya Massey, was previously discharged from the U.S. Army for serious misconduct — and still hired at six police departments in Central Illinois.

The police department has struggled to solve homicides, partly due to shoddy detective work, staffing shortages and eroding community trust.

Journalists at St. Louis Public Radio, APM Reports and The Marshall Project partnered on a 5-part investigation breaking down homicide clearance rates in St. Louis.

These St. Louis families have been waiting for years in hopes of getting answers after their loved ones were killed. While parents, siblings and others say police seem to have forgotten them — they have not.

The city’s homicide unit has dealt with short staffing, long hours and a ballooning DNA backlog.

Several officers in the homicide unit faced internal complaints that they slept on the job, failed to get key evidence and lied to superiors.

In the past decade, police solved fewer than half of the homicide cases with Black victims and two-thirds of the cases with white ones.