COLUMBUS – For the fifth year in a row, Columbus has recorded at least 100 homicides in a calendar year.
The number of murders for 2022 crossed the 100 mark at approximately 11:11 p.m. Wednesday when Marcus Deloney was pronounced dead at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital as a result of gunshot wounds he received in a shooting about 30 minutes earlier in the 100 block of Highfield Drive on the North Side, according to Sgt. Edward Powell III of the Columbus police Homicide Unit.
Johnnie Wappner, 32, was arrested and charged with the murder of the 32-year-old Deloney, Powell said.
The 101st homicide of the year was recorded at approximately two minutes past midnight on Thursday, when a 33-year-old man died from an injury he suffered in a shooting on the Northeast Side, Sgt. Michael Smith of the Homicide Unit said.
Mayfield Evans III was found suffering from a gunshot wound in the 1600 block of Harvester Lane just before 11:15 p.m. Wednesday by officers responding to a report of shots fired.
The officers rendered first aid to Evans, who died at 12:02 a.m. Thursday at a local hospital, Smith said.
This incident remains under investigation.
Columbus has recorded at least 100 homicides per year in each of the last five years, including 2021, when the murder rate set a record high of 205.
Suspicious death ruled city’s 99th homicide
The death of a man who was found in a Northeast Side home Monday was ruled a homicide after the Franklin County Coroner’s Office determined that Lance Thompson had been shot, Sgt. David Shimberg said.
Thompson, 30, was found inside the home in the 1300 block of E. Hudson Street just before 12:30 p.m. by officers responding to a report of a body in the vacant building.
The incident is still under investigation.
Anyone with information regarding these incidents is asked to call the Columbus Police Homicide Unit at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS (8477).