Stabbing victim brings week’s death toll to 4 in Newark

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- It's been a deadly week in New Jersey's largest city.

The Essex County prosecutor's office said Friday it was investigating the death of a man found stabbed in his apartment in the Ironbound district early Friday. Investigators were awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death.

The victim, 64-year-old Dario Rodriguez, became the fourth person reported to have died under violent circumstances in the city this week.

On Monday, a husband and wife were found dead in their apartment in Upper Clinton Hill. Forty-seven-year-old Felicia Sharpe was determined to have died from strangulation. A cause of death was pending on her husband, 48-year-old Juan Silas.

On Wednesday night, 29-year-old Bashir Edwards died in a shooting incident in which four other people were shot and wounded, according to the prosecutor's office.

The city's murder total stood at 38 at the beginning of the week, according to statistics released by the police department. That was six fewer than on the same date last year.

Last year, 93 people were murdered in Newark. In 2013 the city recorded 111 murders, the most in the previous six years.

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