Mecklenburg County is approaching last year's homicide total as police investigated the death of Ellijah Burger, a toddler who was staying with family at a troubled west Charlotte motel.

The boy, who witnesses said had lashes across his body, was killed by blunt force trauma, police say.

Paramedics pulled him out of a motel room Tuesday night where family members were staying on South Tryon Street near Woodlawn and I-77. Later that night, police charged his 22-year-old father, Andre Earl Hampton, with murder.

Ellijah, about three weeks shy of his second birthday, counts as Mecklenburg County's 73rd homicide victim this year. That compares to the 74 Charlotte-Mecklenburg police investigated all of last year – including a spike of 13 in December.

At this point last year, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police had recorded 60 homicides.

There's no single reason for the increased pace, said Ricky Robbins, a sergeant with CMPD's homicide unit.

“You have gangs, drugs, domestic disputes. We're across the board,” he said. “This is a metropolitan city now. You have a lot of people here.”

In most cases, the suspect and the victim knew each other, he said.

The soaring pace of homicides, about 22 percent ahead of last year, stands out.

That's because for the first three quarters this year, the number of violent crimes, in general, has fallen 0.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

And the number of crimes in several other categories is also down, including armed robbery, rape, arson and business break-ins.

Residential burglaries were also up, about 11 percent for the first three quarters ending Sept. 30 compared to the same nine months last year. October crime statistics have not yet been released.

CMPD homicide tallies do not include cases of justifiable homicide, such as when a robber is shot and killed by a potential victim.

Those incidents are usually obvious when they happen, so police categorize them correctly from the start.

But this year's total still includes the controversial shooting death of Aaron Quentin Winchester, who died after CMPD Officer David Jester shot him twice in May on Sylvania Avenue north of uptown. It's unclear if that case will remain classified as a homicide or changed to justifiable.