CHARLOTTE, NC - The number of homicides in Charlotte keeps climbing, with the current total at 88 according to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. But is this the deadliest year on record?

According to statistics from CMPD, the most violent year in Charlotte was 1993, when there were 129 murders. 

Mecklenburg Co. Sheriff Garry McFadden worked as a homicide investigator for CMPD in the 1990s. He says most of the murders in the 1990s were caused by drugs. Now, he says most of the murders are sparked by arguments. 

McFadden says every time he sees a new homicide reported, he thinks back to those violent years he was an investigator. 

"It bothers me. It bothers me because each day we hear that some family is having a funeral," he says. "Some father is gone, some child is going to be raised without a mother, or father, or some mother and father has to bury their kids."

According to the Census Bureau, the population in Charlotte in 1993 was 451,694. The most recent data from 2017 lists the population at 859,035. According to police, as the population increases, violent crime also tends to rise.