Vicksburg and Warren County combined to end 2014 with one homicide, the lowest rate in at least 20 years, as the city more than halved his murder rate from the previous police administration.

The death of 70-year-old Emanuel Erves was the only homicide reported in the Vicksburg or Warren County during 2014. The single death, means Vicksburg and Warren County will have the lowest combined murder rate in recent history.

Erves was pushed down the stairs of a boarding house on Walnut Street during a fight with Caleb Erves, police have said. The two men are not related.

Caleb Erves had been set to go to trial in December, but the judicial proceedings were delayed after his attorney backed out of the case. The killing is similar to most that have occurred since Armstrong took over.

“As far back as we went in the system, we couldn’t find when they had just 1,” Vicksburg police Chief Walter Armstrong said.

“Those that did happen, happened from friends, acquaintances and associates,” Armstrong said.

Over the five-year period Armstrong has been at the helm of VPD, the murder rate has fallen nearly 60 percent.

“I think those are very impressive stats,” Armstrong said.

The total number of murder investigations in the city since he took over July 10, 2009 is 11, compared to 26 murder investigations between Jan. 1, 2004 and July 10, 2009.

“We have really driven homicide down,” Armstrong said.

Almost all the homicide cases have been solved. The only outstanding case in the past five years inside the city is the death of Shanell Burden Stowers, 30, whose body was found in March 2013 in a vacant lot on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Between 2004 and 2008, there were six unsolved homicides, including the death of retired assistant police chief Walter Cole.

The city only had one murder investigation in 2010, but police also investigated a manslaughter case according to VPD records.

“We’ve been able to do it twice, so we’re pretty proud of that,” Armstrong said of lowering the murder rate.

The homicide rate is down significantly since 2013, when seven — four in the city and three in the county — homicides were reported.

No homicides were reported in Warren County for 2014, down from three in 2013, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said.

Jules Humphrey, 19, of Jackson, Ke’Marvin Stamps, a 17-year-old Vicksburg High School student, and Willie Swartz, 27, were all killed in the county in 2013. In the city the deaths of Stowers, Jamaro Carter Jr., Roy Clark and Michael “Tiger” Robinson were investigated as murders.

Warren County has had nine homicides since 2007, with a high of four in 2011.