Homicide cases rise in Warren County in 2020

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The number of homicides worked in Warren County in 2020 rose 71% from the previous year, according to the Warren County Coroner’s Annual Report.

In Warren County, the number of homicides in 2020 went up significantly from that of 2019. But, officials do not necessarily believe it will be a trend.

Last year, the Bowling Green Police Department worked 10 homicide investigations and the Warren County Sheriff’s Office investigated two.

That is a total of 12 homicides in 2020, while in 2019, the county as a whole saw seven.

Warren County Coroner Kevin Kirby said a fluctuation between years is normal.

“I attributed it to more people moving into our area and that rate will fluctuate each year. It will go up and down, up and down, and it was just one of those years that we just had more homicides,” said Kirby.

While police do know the details of each crime committed, they do not fully understand why the numbers went up last year, according to Bowling Green Police Officer Ronnie Ward.

“Since I’ve been in this job, one year we had zero, one year we had seven, one year we had 10. So there’s no, you couldn’t look at this as a sliding scale on a graph that’s continually going up,” said Ward.

The Warren County Sheriff’s Office also had a scene where two people were killed in one incident.

Ward believes all the incidents were isolated or targeted killings and does not believe the public is in any added danger in 2021.

“To try to explain an increase is almost as hard as trying to explain a decrease. We know details of every one of these scenes. It’s sort of unusual that in 2020, you had two scenes that had multiple people died from injuries as a result of what happened there,” he said.

In 2020, the Kentucky State Police did not work any homicide investigations within Warren County.

The Bowling Green Police Department also solved a cold case in 2020.