It's still considered one of the safest states in the union, but Vermont might not feel that way to residents reading the headlines this summer.

Since the kidnapping and death of 12-year-old Brooke Bennett last month, the state has endured four additional homicides — which played out over just 16 days this month.

Those five slayings account for half of the state's total number of homicides this year, according to Max Schlueter, director of the Vermont Crime Information Center in Waterbury.

With the number of homicides each year averaging at 12 — there were 12 in 2007 and 13 in 2006 — Schlueter said there's a good chance there will be more murders than normal in the state during 2008.

But why?

That seems like a tough question to answer.

Homicides this year include killings in Rutland, Wells, Winooski, Wilmington and Chester. The circumstances of the slayings have ranged from drug deals gone bad to a grievance between two groups of friends that ended with a Chester man allegedly gunning down a Springfield man he barely knew during the latest killing in Chester on Sunday.

Schlueter said he doesn't know what's driving the recent spate of killings in Vermont, but he said he's sure of one thing — it's not part of a trend.

"The public ought not to be overly concerned," he said. "There's not a pattern of crime here that puts the public at risk."

For the most part, the murders this year and this summer in particular have followed similar storylines for homicides in Vermont, Schlueter said.

He said slayings in the state typically involve parties who know each other and are involved in a domestic dispute. Drug-related slayings, like the shooting on Grove Street in Rutland, are rare in the state, he said, as are random murders.

Overall, the number of violent crimes in the state dropped in 2007 from a spike in 2006 that accounted for 852 violent crimes in the state. But even in that year, Vermont had only 137 violent crimes per 100,000 population, compared with a national average of 474.

Schlueter said violent crime statistics for 2008 haven't been tabulated yet.

However, Windham County State's Attorney Tracy Shriver said Tuesday that violent crimes have been accounting for a lot of her office's time this year.

"We have had an increase or at least a steady flow of violent crime," Shriver said.

The Windham State's Attorney's Office is dealing with one of the most recent killings involving a 59-year-old man who allegedly shot and killed his neighbor last Friday.

That one incident has ratcheted up the office's workload, she said.

"Cases like that increase our case load substantially," she said.

Contact Brent Curtis at brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com.