It's less than a month into the New Year, but 2008 is already shaping up as potentially one of the deadliest years on record with one suspected homicide so far every 72 hours.

The bloodshed began on January 1 and hasn't stopped since - with the ninth official casualty yesterday in Tokoroa when a man was found lying dead in the street.

National Police Headquarters spokesman Rob Lee said the high murder rate was "alarming", especially given the deaths had come in quick succession.

However that said, the spate of homicides wasn't unusual, Lee said. "Over the past 10 years or so the number of murders has been been fairly stable - with around 80 a year. But each year there tends to be a spate of them in a row and then it drops off."

Victoria University criminologist Dr Gabrielle Maxwell said it wasn't uncommon for more violence, especially domestic violence, to occur over the Christmas-New Year break as alcohol consumption rose.

People tended to drink and party more and often family tensions reached breaking point.

Loneliness and general feelings of depression at that time of year were also factors in why the murder rate often rose.

A month of mayhem

* January 1: Eleven-week-old Tahani Mahomed dies of head injuries.

* January 7: Michael Hutchings, 18, is found dead in the Clutha River.

* January 8: Bronwyn Whakaneke, 33, is found dead in Waitangirua.

* January 9: Dunedin student Sophie Elliott, 22, is stabbed to death.

* January 17: Scottish tourist Karen Aim, 26, is killed in Taupo.

* January 20 : An unidentified woman aged between 30 and 50 is found dead in the Wairoa River.

* January 21: Chattrice Maihi-Carroll-Poipoi, 46, is found dead in her Napier home with stab wounds.

* January 25: Saishwar Krishna Naidu, 22, stabbed to death in parents' dairy.

* January 26: A man is found dying in a Tokoroa street.

By Rebecca Milne and Jenny MacIntyre