KILLEEN, Texas (KXXV) — Commander Anthony Lourence is the head of the Killeen Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division.
25 News reporter Adam Schindler sat down for an exclusive interview with him to discuss the recent murders in Killeen.
“Are you noticing any upwards or downwards trends in violent crimes like homicide in our city,” Schindler asked.
”There is a trend actually that I've noticed and that is, the murders that we have are domestic related,” Commander Lourence said.
“Involving family members, roommates, or people who are in dating relationships.”
That is four of the nine murders this year, and several others are personal disputes between people who knew each other.
”We have a total of nine as of Wednesday morning, knock on wood,” Commander Lourence said.
“A total of nine murders and six of the nine have been cleared.”
Meaning that either an arrest has been made, or as in the case of Monday’s two shooting deaths, the offender is dead because it was a murder-suicide.
”It is domestic related,” Commander Lourence said.
“The suspect is the husband, and the victim is the wife — he shot her and then shot himself.”
As for the case involving a 17-year-old who was killed on Avenue I, they are close to clearing that one too.
”We do have a suspect in that case, or I'll call them a person of interest, and that person is going to be a juvenile,” Commander Lourence said.
“The juvenile is currently in custody on unrelated charges.”
It’s a high clearance rate that the commander contributes to changes in his division.
”Part of that was actually splitting the, at the time, Criminal Investigative Division into a second division,” Commander Lourence said.
“So that I can have units focus on the more major crimes, such as robbery, homicide, aggravated assaults, shootings, sexual assaults."
“What do you want the community to know about the approach you’re talking to investigating these crimes?” Schindler said.
”I definitely would say it would be good for the community to that we did make those changes to how we approach homicides or murder investigations,” Commander Lourence said.
“In that, we have double the amount of people that we can assign to investigating the homicides.”
Commander Lourence says the community can help by providing and information they may have on, and of the crimes CID is investigating and that information can be provided anonymously.
