Sarnia detectives and a mobile police command center have left the scene where a dead body was pulled from an apartment and a man was charged with first-degree murder.
Sarnia detectives and a mobile police command center have left the scene where a dead body was pulled from an apartment and a man was charged with first-degree murder.
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But the city’s first homicide of 2024, featuring a two-day manhunt while investigators combed the south-end neighborhood for clues, came amid an unusually busy start to the year with several serious, violent and high-risk crimes being reported, the police chief says.
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“The operational burden has been very heavy. The workload has been very heavy. The members are working hard to address a lot of the serious crime issues that we’re encountering,” Sarnia Police Chief Derek Davis said. “(Last) week was exceptionally busy.”
The week began with officers sent to an Exmouth Street home amid reports of an overnight stabbing Family Day. The emergency response team swooped in on the same house later that day after reports of a man threatening and pointing a replica firearm at teens. Christopher Pevec, 37, of Sarnia, faces weapons and uttering threat counts,
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That was one of 16 times the emergency response team has been deployed during the first eight weeks of 2024, Davis said.
Two days later, criminal investigations division detectives and forensic investigators were sent to Unit 4 of 219 Queen St., a second-level apartment near Devine Street, for a suspicious death probe, later upgraded to a homicide.
Adam Bishop, 40, of Sarnia, was charged Friday with first-degree murder and committing an indignity to a body in the death of Christopher Michael Bond, 66, of Sarnia. Bishop was held pending a court appearance Tuesday.
The homicide probe popped up during what Davis called an exceptionally busy and trying start to the year.
“Certainly for January and February, it’s unexpected levels of operational demand. Usually, historically, those are lower demand periods, but this particular year has been incredibly busy,” said the chief, who was sworn in a year and a half ago. “. . . Members that have been here for a long period of time. . . are saying this is an exceptionally busy period beyond what (has) normally historically been the case.”
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The local record for homicides was set three years ago. Five people — four in Sarnia, one in Lambton County — died during a 27-day stretch from Dec. 31, 2020, to Jan. 26, 2021, bookended by the discovery of two seniors in their homes just days apart. It was the worst part of a deadly periodin the region from March 2020 to October 2022.
Last week’s homicide investigation was the first in Sarnia-Lambton since fall 2022.
Davis said police, who have no control over the volume and types of 911 calls that come in, do their best to respond effectively.
“Whatever resources we can pull from whatever area, we pull and we do the best we can to manage through the crisis,” he said. “It’s challenging.”
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