Local authorities revealed the names of the first four victims who died in homicides in the Roanoke area
Indictments filed Monday with the Roanoke Circuit Court name Michael Douglas Hancock, James Lee Moore Jr., Avianna Nicole Adams, and Christopher Ryan Sinram as the victims of the city’s first four murders of 2023.
Roanoke police have arrested someone in connection with each murder, but none of the victims have been named.
The regional state medical examiner’s office confirmed on Wednesday that Moore and Sinram both died from gunshot wounds to the chest and head, respectively.
The office was “unable to release any information” about Hancock’s cause or manner of death, and Adams’ case “is still pending.”
On Jan. 8, Hancock was killed in the first confirmed shooting of the year in the city. Police said that they found him in a house in the 800 block of 30th Street Northwest with a gunshot wound. The Serenity Funeral Home and Cremation Service said in his obituary that he was 64 years old.
Charlotte Renee Saunders, 48, of Roanoke, was indicted Monday on two felony charges related to Hancock’s death: first-degree murder and using a gun in the commission of a felony.
A search warrant signed by the Circuit Court on January 17 says that Saunders was arrested on January 15 “in connection with charges that were not related.” But she “gave a detailed account of her role in the incident” that killed Hancock, the affidavit says, and she was charged with the murder.
Moore was the second person who died from a shooting this year. He died on January 11, when police found him in a house in the 2300 block of Delaware Avenue Northwest. He had been shot and was not breathing. A. E. Grier & Sons Funeral and Cremation in Charlotte, North Carolina, says that he was 39 years old.
Marcus Delleon Williamson, 51, of Roanoke, was taken into custody by police at the scene. He was charged with three felonies on Monday: first-degree murder, using a gun to commit a crime, and having a gun as a violent felon. In Roanoke City Jail records, Williamson’s middle name also shows up as “De Leon.”
Adams, the youngest victim of the year at age 4, died on January 24, three days after she was rushed to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
On January 21, Roanoke’s 911 center got a call about a hurt child in the Norwich neighborhood on the 2100 block of Russell Avenue Southwest. First responders from the Roanoke Fire-EMS Department got there and took Adams, who was not moving, to the hospital.
When police arrived, a man at the house told them that the girl’s injuries were caused by an accident. But investigators found that Adams’ injuries were “critical and did not seem to have been caused by an accident,” police said.
Jonathan Shaquille Anderson, 32, of Roanoke, Virginia, was charged with hurting someone on January 23. When Adams died from her injuries on Jan. 24, Anderson was charged with second-degree murder.
Anderson was charged with first-degree murder, child abuse and neglect, and cruelty and injuries to a child on Monday.
The Lotz Funeral Home wrote that Adams was “a brave and adventurous little angel with a smile that could light your soul.” “This sweet girl’s tragic end also saved many lives. She will be missed very much, and she is very loved.”
Sinram is the most recent person who was killed by a gunshot in the city. He died on January 25 outside a home in the 700 block of Northwest Hunt Avenue. According to his obituary, which was written by Oakey’s Funeral Service & Crematory, he was 47 years old.
Witnesses at the scene of the shooting were able to identify the shooter as he was trying to get away. Christopher Arias, Sinram’s stepson, was caught and taken into custody. He was first charged with murder in the second degree.
Arias was charged with two felonies on Monday: first-degree murder and using a gun to commit a felony. Anna Arias-Sinram, who is Sinram’s wife and Arias’ mother, said that she thinks the city’s health and justice systems have let her family down.
Arias-Sinram said on Wednesday, “We are grieving the loss of a husband, a father, and a best friend, as well as the loss of a child, a brother, and a kid who has struggled for so long with mental health issues.”
Arias’s mother said that about a year ago, Arias called 911 because “he was afraid he was going to hurt himself or someone else, and he wanted to go to the hospital.”
Arias-Sinram said that the police picked up her son and took him to the emergency room, but neither the hospital nor the police department followed up. Not so much as a phone call.”
After that, Arias tried to kill himself, his mother said, and he was in the hospital for about a week.
“We pleaded with them not to let him go. He didn’t want to go back home. Arias-Sinram said, “They didn’t pay attention.” “Unfortunately, it was my husband’s life that paid for it. I’ll never understand how easy it was for my son to get a gun.”
The mother said that her son bought the gun from “a friend’s older brother,” but she doesn’t understand how “he was able to use it repeatedly at the shooting range,” where she thought he would have had to show “proof of ownership and registration.”
Arias-Sinram said, “I’m not sure how it worked that they let him bring his own gun when he wasn’t even old enough to buy one.” “No one thought that was a bad sign.”
The mother thinks that gun violence in the city will continue because it’s hard to get mental health care or stay in a treatment facility, especially for people with state-funded insurance who have both a mental illness and a problem with drugs or alcohol.
“Listen to your gut if you’re worried about a loved one who seems to be struggling or hasn’t been acting like themselves. Arias-Sinram said, “Trust your gut.” “Tell someone they need help if you think they do. It’s better to be uncomfortable and have someone be a little upset with you than to lose a life, whether it’s a real death or a life that’s lost spent in jail. We only have one shot. That’s it, and it’s over so quickly. Do something if you know someone is in pain. You might just save someone’s life.”
Concerns have been raised by a new study about how gun violence in the United States is getting worse.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives says that guns that were bought legally are now being found at crime scenes more quickly. This is the first gun crime report from the federal government in more than 20 years.
Michael Lawlor, a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, said, “This shows that there was trafficking going on.” “In other words, people are buying guns legally and then giving them to people who plan to use them to commit crimes.
“In 1999, Lawlor wrote Connecticut’s first “red flag” law, which made it legal to temporarily take guns away from people who might hurt themselves or others. He says that this report is clear proof that some people make money by selling guns to people who want to break the law. SEE MORE: Review of the Year 2022: Gun Violence “These guns are being used in crimes very quickly, often by someone else less than a year after they were bought legally,” Lawlor said.
“So, the question is how those guns got from the legal owner to the criminal. And we know that sometimes this is because the guns were stolen or because they were being sold.” Lawlor says that in many states, it’s easy for people who sell guns to hide their crime by saying the guns were stolen. In fact, the report says that between 2017 and 2021, almost 2 million guns were reported stolen. Almost all of them, or 96%, came from private people. The report also mentions a few very worrying trends, such as the rise of so-called “ghost guns.”
“These guns don’t have serial numbers, so it’s hard to find out where they came from,” Lawlor said. “You can order the parts online and put them together yourself.” Also, the number of Glock switches, which turn a legal semi-automatic gun into an illegal fully automatic one, has gone up by more than five times. Lawlor said, “The ability to fire literally 30 or 100 bullets in just a few seconds is a sign of bad things to come.”
This thing was used in a shootout with police in Houston, Texas, that hurt three officers. The suspect used a gun that had been changed against the law. It had a high-capacity ammo drum and a Glock switch. The ATF found 814 of these types of “converters” in the five years between 2012 and 2016. In the five years covered by the most recent report, this number jumped to more than 5,100.
