From Office of the Berks County District Attorney<\/p>\n
District Attorney John T. Adams announced on Tuesday, Jan. 6, that 15 homicides occurred in Berks County in 2025. Of those 15 homicides, 12 occurred in the City of Reading.\u00a0Of the 15 homicides that occurred in Berks County, only two remain unsolved as of this date.\u00a0The unsolved murders are the shooting of Christopher Green on April 5, 2025, on the 600 block of North 2nd Street in the City of Reading, and the shooting of Melvin Frazier on the 1200 block of Lorraine Road and Oak Lane in the City of Reading.<\/p>\n
One of the homicides that occurred was ruled justified.\u00a0That homicide occurred on June 6, 2025, on the 400 block of North 10th Street in the City of Reading.\u00a0That homicide involved a juvenile.<\/p>\n
Two of the incidents were murder-suicide.\u00a0The first murder-suicide occurred on Feb. 17, 2025, at 1226 Locust St. in the City of Reading.\u00a0The second murder-suicide occurred on April 8, 2025, on the 1400 block of Mount Laurel Road in Muhlenberg Township.<\/p>\n
Eight of the homicides that occurred in Berks County in 2025 can be characterized as domestic violence-related homicides.\u00a0One of those homicides involved a defendant, Jose Luis Rodriguez, who has been charged with the killings of three individuals \u2013 Junior Cabrera-Colon, Geraldina Peguero-Mancebo, and Jeyden Junior Peguero.<\/p>\n
Two people were arrested in 2025 for homicides that occurred in previous years.\u00a0On Sept. 10, 2025, Carlos Luis Ramirez was arrested for the Sept. 13, 2021, homicide of Cristian Orozco.\u00a0On Oct. 7, 2025, Sandra Guadalupe-Castro was arrested for the 1993 homicide of Eddie Burgos-Oquendo.<\/p>\n
Previous years\u2019 homicides<\/p>\n
In 2021, Berks County had 19 homicides.\u00a0Of those 19, two were ruled as justified homicides.\u00a0Twelve of those homicides occurred in the City of Reading, but one was ruled justified.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Berks County had 23 homicides.\u00a0Seventeen of those homicides occurred in the City of Reading.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Berks County had 20 homicides. One of those homicides was a justified officer-involved shooting.\u00a0Fifteen of those homicides occurred in the City of Reading.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Berks County had 12 homicides. Eight of those homicides occurred in the City of Reading.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Adams said the trend of the drop in homicides is reflective of the ongoing efforts by the City of Reading Neighborhood Gun Violence Detail, the Berks County District Attorney\u2019s Office Gun Violence Reduction Task Force, and the Berks County Probation and Parole\u2019s Firearms Suppression Unit.\u00a0Two of these task forces, the City of Reading and Probation and Parole\u2019s Firearms Suppression Unit, are funded by grants received from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are extremely pleased that fighting gun violence is a priority of PCCD, and the results thus far have shown that the formation and work of these task forces, from the receipt of grant funding, are making an impact in our community,\u201d Adams stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am also pleased to share that law enforcement continues to seek justice for the victims of the violence that occurs in our community.\u00a0The fact that we solved two cold case homicides this year is another example of the hard work of investigators and their ongoing efforts to solve the violent crimes that occur in our community,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Other collaborative efforts include Nightlight. Nightlight involves County Detectives, County and State Parole, Deputy Sheriffs, and City and County Police. This detail makes unannounced visits to offenders\u2019 residences, conducts bar checks, and has been very successful in seizing weapons and drugs.\u00a0This detail, which is funded by the County, has been operating for many years.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Adams stated, \u201cWe will continue these collaborative efforts with all law enforcement in our County, as we will continue to do everything possible to keep our community safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecution of pending homicides<\/p>\n
In 2025, the District Attorney\u2019s Office closed 12 homicide cases.\u00a0One hundred percent of the homicide cases handled by the Berks County District Attorney\u2019s Office in 2025 resulted in guilty pleas to homicide charges or guilty verdicts by a judge or jury to the homicide charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Office of the Berks County District Attorney District Attorney John T. Adams announced on Tuesday, Jan. 6,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-84523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}