PITTSBURGH — There are hundreds of unsolved homicides in the city of Pittsburgh, and 11 Investigates analysis uncovered city neighborhoods where the majority of cases remain open. There were 71 homicide victims in Allegheny County last year alone, 36 investigated by county police and 35 by Pittsburgh police.
“This is an epidemic,” said Bonnie McLain, who lost her great-nephew Matthew Steffy-Ross to gun violence. “Our children dying on the streets is not a top priority.”
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Steffy-Ross was 17-years-old. He and Jaiden Brown, also 17, died in the mass shooting at an Airbnb on the North Side Easter Sunday 2022. Steffy-Ross loved spending time at his Aunt Bonnie’s. He was a leader at his high school and had started writing music.
“I know I’ll never know the reason why it was him, why it was Jaden, instead of somebody else. Why, out of all those kids, why were they the only two that ended up dead?” she said.
McLain said her heart aches for all children whose lives end prematurely. She’s also saddened by the lack of arrests nearly four years later.
11 Investigates filed Right-To-Know requests for five years of homicide data, 2021-2025. We analyzed all 531 homicides that fell within that timeframe and mapped the 529 with location data provided.
This heat map represents two things: how many homicides occurred in each Pittsburgh neighborhood and the solve rate in each one.
An alternative map displays the same data differently. The larger circles represent a higher number of homicides. The lighter circles represent a higher solve rate. The darker the color, the higher the percentage of unsolved homicides. Using that scale, the most concerning areas are represented by large, dark bubbles.
There are neighborhoods like Homewood North with 18 homicides and East Hills with 13 that have solve rates just over 50 percent.
In Carrick, 64 percent of the homicides during the 5-year window are unsolved. There’s an even higher percentage of unsolved cases in Brighton Heights and East Liberty.
In Northview Heights, 75 percent of the homicides are unsolved. In Garfield, 80 percent are unsolved.
Of the four homicides that occurred in Crawford-Roberts during the 5-year period, none have been solved.
You can find data for all of Allegheny County here.
State police investigated just ten of the homicides. County police investigated 265 homicides. Pittsburgh Police investigated 256.
The data shows that over the last five years, as of this month, 43 percent of the homicides that occurred within the city of Pittsburgh are unsolved. Among county police cases, 26 percent of cases are unsolved.
We sent our findings to Pittsburgh Police to review and sat down with Commander Brian Schmitt, who oversees the homicide unit. We pointed out areas of concern and asked why police are having trouble solving cases in those neighborhoods.
“Without looking at each and every single case, it’s hard to elaborate,” Schmitt said.
“Does it concern you getting those communities to work with you again?” investigative reporter Jatara McGe asked.
“Absolutely. I mean, we always want that community relationship,” Schmitt said.
Experts say a strong police-community relationship is key to building trust. Schmitt said community engagement is one of the department’s goals.
“There’s no rhyme or reason sometimes on neighborhood, geographic location, why we have better cooperation on some and less cooperation on others,” Schmitt said.
But when pressed on if it is harder to get people to talk in certain neighborhoods in the city, Schmit said, “There are certain cases, certain neighborhoods where we do see kind of a more difficult approach to getting that cooperation.”
He also said that has been a challenge for investigators in the Easter mass shooting.
11 Investigates found case after case where the “snitches get stitches” mentality is keeping killers on the street.
The data is heartbreaking for Cathy Welsh and Barbie Sampson. They run Families Seeking Justice, a group birthed out of frustration victims’ families were being overlooked by police.
“You have to believe that we don’t deserve to be treated the way we are,” Welsh said.
The group focuses on the Mon Valley, but Sampson said they regularly hear from families outside their main area, including city residents looking for their help. They hold events to help victims’ families heal and seek support. They also connect families with detectives working their cases.
County police tell 11 Investigates Families Seeking Justice, and other advocacy groups are helping them solve cases.
The work is personal to both Welsh and Sampson.
“You just keep living the same pain over and over and over again,” Sampson said.
She lost her daughter, Jasmine Guest, 24, to a shooting on the Parkway East. A man has been charged in the crime, but the court case has dragged on for years with delay after delay.
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Welsh’s son Jerame Turner, 16, died in 2017. The case was never solved. He left behind parents and several siblings, including a twin sister.
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“That’s one of the hardest parts of my journey,” Welsh said through tears. “She’s broken in ways that I’ll never understand.”
Together they’re searching for healing and trying to help other families, like McLain’s, find the same thing. She’s attended several of the group’s outings, citing a lack of similar resources for the families of victims who were killed in the city.
“I have been lucky in the sense that the two detectives on this particular case, they have never given up on it,” she said. “But you can’t do anything without information, and almost four years later, people are still too scared to talk.”
Despite the length of time that has already passed, McLain remains hopeful and confident an arrest or arrests will happen one day.
“I don’t expect to still be living when it happens. But I believe that justice is going to come,” she said.
Homicide data was provided by PA state police, Allegheny County Police and City of Pittsburgh Police through Right-to-know requests and are current as of their response. Neighborhood-level data was either provided by City of Pittsburgh Police in the initial records response or by 11 investigates using the provided address data and querying the City of Pittsburgh’s database of neighborhoods. One county record had no known location, two city records lacked address information and could not be narrowed down to a specific neighborhood.
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