By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – The number of murders in St. Louis is up sharply this year.
Jermaine Byrd, 36, was found shot to death late Wednesday in an alley near Carondelet Park.
His killing is the 102nd this year in the city. At this point last year, there had been around 70 homicides.
The Rev. Freddy James Clark heads the group A Call to Oneness, which organized a huge anti-violence rally earlier this summer. Clark said the statistics this year are perplexing.
"I wish I had all the answers to that," Clark said. "I guess it would be easy for me to say it's gang-related and we can all go back to business as usual. But I'm not sure."
In 2007 there were 138 murders in the city. The homicide rate in St. Louis peaked in the 1970s, when the city averaged 220 murders a year.