Crime & Safety

July's Top Stories: Murder-Suicide, Derecho Coverage Top List

See which stories Oakton Patch readers clicked on the most in the month of July

Each month Oakton Patch will list the stories readers found the most fascinating, as measured by page views. 

Once you're done reviewing the list, let us know if you're surprised by this month's top stories. Which story had you talking to coworkers at the water cooler the next day?

Note: Because the murder-suicide and derecho coverage dominated the top 10, we've grouped followup stories into one large count and created a top five list.

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Now let's get to July's top stories:

5. : The Coalition of the Silence, a group former school board member Tina Hone founded to seek equity for all students within Fairfax County Public Schools, and the Fairfax branch of the NAACP filed the discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, asserting FCPS has committed "clear violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964" with its Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology admissions process. Not only did the article garner enough page views to make our top 5 list, but it also collected nearly 200 comments. 

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4. : A simple announcement of when highlights of the debate between former governors Tim Kaine and George Allen — in front of the Virginia Bar Association and moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley — would air on CNN grabbed the attention of Oakton readers to make it one of the most read articles in July.

3. Police Logs: The Fair Oaks Police Logs have always nabbed a good number of views, but this month's updates seemed to capture more readers than usual. The most read of the five logs published in July was from the week of , which included a burglary, a sex offense and a sexual assault in the police district. 

2. Derecho coverage: The June 29 derecho slammed Northern Virginia and left hundreds of thousands of people, including Oakton residents, without power. The ongoing coverage of outage updates and road closings over the week following the storm kept readers coming back to hear the latest on the aftermath. 

1. Apparent Murder-Suicide on Trevor House Drive: Fairfax County Police on Trevor House Drive to find one person dead and one person, who later died, in need of medical attention on July 25. Later that night, FCPD announced they  in which Alexander Aden Rios allegedly shot and killed his roommate, Ihab Robert Qutob, then turned the gun on himself. Neighbors, described Rios as "always a very happy, energetic guy." 

EDITOR'S CHOICE

Every month a few stories slip through the cracks, not garnering nearly as many hits — or at least not enough to make the top stories list — as your humble journalist at the helm of Oakton Patch hopes. So here are a few stories worthy of highlighting once again: 

**: After years of preserving and compiling data on the Oakton Schoolhouse, two interpretive markers now stand outside to inform the public of its history. The Fairfax County Park Authority and Hunter Mill Defense League unveiled the markers at a July 14 ceremony at the schoolhouse.

**: While the U.S. has placed kidnapping charges against Faical Chebbi, the fate of U.S.-born Eslam, 6, and Zainab, 3, rests in the hands of a Tunisian court, which delayed its judgment until September. To read more background on this case, click here.

**: This article is worth a look simply for the photos, taken by a couple Oakton Otter parents, of the annual senior celebration at the last home meet of the summer season.  

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