Feb. 25, 1963 - Murder is mainly an indoor crime in New York City. It is harder on wives than on husbands. Saturday is the deadliest day of the week. Nine out of ten homicides were solved by the police last year. Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy (pictured left with Mayor Robert Wagner) released a “study of murder” today, giving facts about the city’s 508 homicides last year. Knives or similar weapons were used in 40% of the city’s killings last year, running far ahead of the total for pistols, rifles, and shotguns. The study showed that killings resulted most commonly from arguments that grew too hot and erupted into “crimes of passion.” As for other reasons, the report said, “the motives for murder, as for most crimes, are buried deep in the minds of the perpetrators.” Mr. Murphy said the more spectacular killings of 1962 included the slaying of five men within a week by a two-man holdup team and the murder of three persons, two of them policemen, by a deranged man. Thirty-one husbands killed their wives. Ten wives killed their husbands. In parent-child relationships, the study revealed six mothers slain by sons, four fathers slain by sons, six mothers killed by daughters, one father killed by his daughter, one son slain by his father, and one son killed by his mother.
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