Mesa police investigate 1st homicide of year

Mesa police are investigating the city's first homicide of the year, a 36-year-old stabbing victim whose body was discovered Sunday morning on a west Mesa neighborhood street.

Homicides hit near 30-year low; assaults up

Mesa has yet to see a homicide this year

Police identified the victim as Rick Glum, whose body was found by a motorist on his way to work about 5 a.m. in the 400 block of West 10th Street, near Country Club Drive, said Detective Steve Berry, a Mesa police spokesman.

Glum had been released from an Arizona Department of Corrections prison on April 27, according to prison records. In February 2008, Glum was sentenced to 30 months in prison for an aggravated DUI charge involving an incident that happened on Jan. 14, 2004, according to prison records.

Glum's death is being investigated as the city's first homicide in nearly six months.

At this time last year, Mesa had nine homicides, and this year marked the longest time in at least 29 years that the city had gone without a homicide, according to Mesa police.

Police would not release the exact details of the stabbing because of the ongoing investigation and an attempt to find solid leads in the case, Berry said.

Glum's father told the Tribune on Tuesday that his son died from a single stab wound to the chest and bled to death about 75 feet from Country Club Drive, near an apartment complex.

Kenneth Glum, said his son had gone to his brother's house near Val Vista Drive and the U.S. 60 to watch an NBA playoff game Saturday night, and left about 2:30 a.m. on a purple 10-speed bicycle.

However, the bicycle has disappeared, he said.

"As well as I know my son, he went over there knowing somebody, not hoping to know somebody," Kenneth Glum said. "We believe he was trying to visit a girl, and got into a fight with somebody. He was a son I was proud of because he wouldn't start an argument or confrontation with anybody, but he would protect himself."

The Glum family is offering a $2,500 reward for any information that can lead to the arrest or conviction of someone responsible for the murder.

"We don't know who he was with, or who he was around before he was killed," Berry said. "The family doesn't really know, either. There was no indication that he had been fighting with anyone. Right now, there are no sound leads."

Berry attributed the length of time Mesa - a city of about 450,000 residents - has gone without a homicide to police focusing on repeat offenders to suppress violent crimes.

"For a city this size, that's only going to last for so long," Berry said.

Mesa's last homicide happened Nov. 16, when Christian Gonzalez, 23, was shot multiple times inside a pickup truck outside Club Cabo at 98 E. First Ave. Christian Garcia, 26, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in connection to that incident, police said.

Anyone with information about the incident involving Glum is encouraged to call Silent Witness at (480) 948-6377 or the Mesa Police Department at (480) 644-2211.