9. Petersburg
Petersburg was the most murder-prone locality in Virginia in terms of killings per 100,000 people, according to preliminary, unpublished data released to the Richmond Times-Dispatch by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia. The city outperformed even Richmond, which was fourth in the state with 24.7 killings per 100,000 people. Petersburg has been continuously placed among the top three cities in terms of per capita killings since at least 2013, according to medical examiner data. In three of the last six years, the city has been rated #1. During that time, the city was the site of 77 homicides.
In contrast, nearby Chesterfield County, which has ten times the population, had five homicides last year, with a per capita homicide rate of 1.5 kills per 100,000 people, according to the medical examiner. The county scored 74th out of 82 places with at least one killing and the spot on the list of the US cities with highest homicide rates in 2024.
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