![]() “But the crime rate here is still surprising.” “This is a very affluent neighborhood,” Patterson said. He added: “the more business, the more foot traffic and the less violent crime you have.”īut some residents say they aren't so much focused on the homicide rate as much as the crime rate. “As far as safety, it's populated with a lot of retail shoppers and there's not much night life.” “I think good, quality restaurants make the neighborhood safer with some foot traffic,” she said.ĭave Friday, owner of Hipster Home, said he also thinks the strong business district is a contributing factor to low homicide rates. “But other than that, it's petty crime and things like car break-ins.”įitzpatrick also said the business district and lower population density – which, according to the 2010 census, is just under 10,000 – contribute to a safer environment. “There was a murder in front of Wawa a few years back,” she said. “I find that people are really friendly here,” she said.ĭenise Fitzpatrick, who doesn't life in Chestnut Hill but frequents the neighborhood, said she's not surprised about the low murder rate. at 11 o'clock by myself.”Ĭheryl said she attributes the neighborhood's general feeling of safety to it being more of a community within a city. “I'd have no problem walking down Germantown Ave. “I see a policeman that walks around,” said Cheryl. They picked the area partially due to its reputation for being safe. “But I think they were just driving through and it's a good place to dump a body.”įor other residents, the low crime rate compared with other parts of the city was a reason why some of them moved here.Ĭheryl and Jim Dexter moved to Chestnut Hill from New Jersey to enjoy more of a city life. “I heard the shot and testified in trial,” Patterson said. Patterson said he was involved in the murder trial of Alexander Porter, a West Philadelphia teen who was shot to death near Navajo Street and Cresheim Valley Drive with his hands bound behind his back. “A lot of murders are criminal on criminal,” he said. Airy, said he's not surprised that many of the area's murders didn't involve local victims, but rather were shootings in drug disputes. Mort Patterson, who recently moved from Chestnut Hill to Mt. No matter where you're at you're going to have that possibility of crime." "For the size of our community, we have in my opinion very few crimes and certainly we normally don't have any murders," Martin said. Local residents were not surprised that the area had so few of homicides compared to the rest of the city.ĭick Martin, who leads Chestnut Hill's Town Watch, said most crimes that occur are things like car break-ins and the occasional burglary. ![]() The most newsworthy of all the reports was the 1999 murder of Daily News Columnist Russell Byers, who lived in Chestnut Hill. Paul left a note specifying the family's intentions at his office at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.”Īlso the Inquirer's data failed to account for the body of 22-year-old Simeon Henry, of Germantown, found in 1995 along with the body of 27-year-old North Philadelphian Rodney Brown in the trunk of a car in the parking lot of Chestnut Hill Village. Malainie Paul, 48, and their two children, Madine, 7, and Rejiva, 12, were attached to separate intravenous solution bottles when discovered by the police on Tuesday, July 17, shortly after 10 a.m. The Local's records indicate that Paul was 12 years of age and died in an apparent suicide pact that claimed an entire family, perhaps the most remarkable murder suicide in Chestnut Hill's history. The news organization also reported only that 13-year-old Rejiva Paul died July 17, 1990, with a cause of death listed as other. ![]() The data for Helen Bernstein, strangled at Chestnut Hill Tower in a 1995 murder is superseded by the murder of David Nurse, who was shot and killed at the Chestnut Hill Tower Apartments in 2001. We found one discrepancy in the Inquirer's software that seemed to list only one homicide per address. While the map indicates that the Hill was the scene of seven homicides from 1988 to 2011, a search of Chestnut Hill Local archives turned up only four, with another noted only in an obituary.įour homicides reported as news in the Local were the deaths of four members of one family in July 1990 resulting from an apparent suicide pact. The Local cross referenced the Inquirer's results with its own news archives and found that, for the most part, the numbers were accurate. 11 percent of the city's 9,000 homicide total over the same period. Just how safe is Chestnut Hill? According to a city map shown recently on the Philadelphia Inquirer's website, Chestnut Hill had only 10 homicides in the past 23 years.
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