In The Area...

Crime rose for the second consecutive year in Fairfax County during 2008, according to statistics released last week by Fairfax police.

Serious crime—which the FBI defines as murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft—rose 9.7 percent. The increase was driven largely by larcenies, which typically make up about three-fourths of serious, or “Part I,” crimes. In 2007, 14,244 larcenies were reported by Fairfax County police. In 2008, that number increased by two-thousand to 16,244.

Police noted that violent crimes, which include murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, declined about 9 percent, from 1,044 cases in 2007 to 953 last year. The number of murders, however, rose from 13 to 22.

Lawsuits were filed last Thursday on behalf of two families who lost their daughters in the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech.

The parents, Celeste and Grafton Peterson of Virginia, and Harry and Karen Pryde of New Jersey, also issued a joint statement on the second-anniversary of the event. Excerpts of the statement are as follows:

“We raised our daughters with a sense of integrity, a desire to seek the truth and a belief in keeping their word. Virginia Tech did not keep its word to us. We have filed this lawsuit in the hope that we will receive accountability for the tragic events of April 16, 2007 . . . ”

“ . . . Our decision to file this suit against the university and its administrators has been made only after grave and serious thought. We believe that our suit is necessary to reveal truths that ultimately will benefit all those who have shared in this tragic loss, and that it will help heal the wounds that remain open because full disclosure of the facts has been denied.”

According to the statement, the lawsuits will be conducted in an open and public forum, as an opportunity to “seek truth and justice.”

A Fairfax County woman who fatally shot her husband after spray-painting an angry diatribe about him on their driveway was sentenced yesterday to eight years in prison for voluntary manslaughter on April 17.

The sentence was first reached in January by a jury that rejected prosecutors' attempt to convict Marysusan Giguere, 53, of first-degree murder in the March 3, 2008, slaying of Ronald K. Giguere, 60. The couple had been married for 25 years and lived with their two sons in a home on Crowell Road near Reston.