With Houston's homicide rate up by 18% since last year, families are looking back on a tough year

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- As we get ready to begin a new year, many families are looking back at a tough year.

Houston just recorded its 473rd homicide of the year, which means murders are up 18% from last year.

"These holidays, I just don't want to celebrate. I really don't," said Manda Lagway.

Lagway is now caring for her grandchildren, Greyson, Lyric, and Gregory.

Both Greyson and Lyric survived a brutal attack in June that killed their mother, 29-year-old Donyavia Lagway, and their father, 35-year-old Gregory Carhee, and their sister, six-year-old Harmony Carhee.

The suspect remains in jail.

"We don't have no mother or nothing and all the fun things we used to, we can't do it no more because they not here," explained Gregory.

So far this year, 473 people in our city have been murdered. Last year, the number was 400. In 2019, the number was 277.

"I just pray that everybody comes together as a city of citizens, everything about the criminal justice system," said Houston Police Chief Troy Finner. "At the end of the year, at the end of the month, the numbers did continue to go down."

Numbers have gone down from this spring, when our city's murder rate was a full 44% higher than the year before.

But, it's little consolation for families facing another year without their loved ones.