Homicides in St. Louis continued downward trends in 2025, decreasing by 7% from the previous year, from 151 in 2024 to 139 last year.
Police data showed that in the first three months of last year, homicides had dropped to their lowest level since 2005, and that overall crime was down by 28% compared to the first quarter of 2024.
Prior to that, city officials in early 2024 touted a report that revealed crime trends were the lowest they’d been in a decade, based on a 2023 study released by the mayor’s office and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
That report revealed a 21% reduction in homicides between 2022 and 2023.
The latest numbers provided by police in an online homicide analysis report show the city had 139 homicides at the end of 2025 — a lower, yet steady, decline from 151 homicides in 2024 compared to previous years.
The clearance rate for last year’s homicides was 61% based on 85 cases solved, police data shows. The clearance rate jumps to 84% when including 32 cases from previous years that were solved last year.
Police Sgt. Sean Mazzola said he believes community partnership had a big hand in last year’s continued downward trend and in solving cases. He said that officers have been intentional about building trust and that ensuring community residents feel comfortable when sharing insight with detectives.
“A lot of these homicides are involved with people that know each other, so that makes convictions and things like that, and tracking these people down a lot easier for our detectives,” Mazzola said.
Most of the motives for homicides in 2025 were unknown, police reported, but a significant number of deaths stemmed from arguments, robbery and drugs.
Impact of the May 16 tornado
A storm that tore a 23-mile path through the St. Louis area last May, which included an EF3 tornado, left at least five people dead and hundreds of residents displaced from their homes. Abandoned buildings have historically contributed to crime, said Lee Slocum, professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
She said that as last year’s data is still being analyzed, it’s too early to say how much of an impact the storm had on violence.
“A lot of the antiviolence efforts kind of got put on pause for a little while so that those offices could help deal with the aftermath of the tornado and help people there,” Slocum said.
She noted that advocates like the city’s Office of Violence Prevention were busy helping in some of the hardest-hit areas in the city, like parts of north St. Louis, which is also where high crime has historically occurred.
“I think we might have seen bigger declines if we hadn't been hit by the tornado,” Slocum said. “So I think that's one piece of the puzzle that we don't really know how that has affected violence in the city.”
Police data shows there were 160 homicides across the city in 2023, in 2022 there were 200, and in 2021 there were 203.
Mazzola said there were 263 homicides in 2020.
