DURHAM -- The deaths of an Oshawa woman and her young son at the hands of a man who was later shot dead by police marked the sixth and seventh homicides involving a Durham resident this year -- and the fourth instance in which it is alleged a woman was killed by a man.

Leslie Kelly, 26, was stabbed to death when a dispute arose at a family get-together in a home on Glen Street late Saturday afternoon. Her son Nathan, 3, died Wednesday in hospital from wounds received during the same dispute.

Gino Petralia, 47, killed Ms. Kelly and also stabbed her husband and two of their three children during the rampage. He was shot dead by Durham police.

Other homicides of 2008:

- Elizabeth Tompkins of Whitby was murdered along with her mother and brother as she visited her parents' Toronto home last month. Police said the woman's father killed his family before committing suicide.

- The body of Amber Young, 21, was found by police investigating a report of a marijuana grow operation at a house on Bloor Street in Oshawa in late October. Durham police have charged 25-year-old Jason Rodgerson with second-degree murder.

- Yvonne Leroux, 58, was gunned down in a trailer park near Lindsay Sept. 18. Her estranged husband, Jack Hale of Oshawa, was arrested later that day and charged with first-degree murder.

- Jeffrey Warne, 19, was gunned own in his rented Pickering home in January. A 21-year-old man is charged in that killing.

- A week before Mr. Warne's death the body of 23-year-old Khristian Gerri Ottley was found in a car on Valley Farm Road in Pickering. Police have confirmed Jeffrey Warne's killing was connected to Mr. Ottley's death.

The site of last weekend's killing in south Oshawa has been the focus of homicide investigations in the past. In November of 2007 Randy Roberts, 23, sustained a fatal stab wound. His brother, George Roberts, was arrested at the scene.

And in June 2005 the body of Brandon Seville, 22, was found in nearby Cordova Park with obvious signs of trauma. No arrests have been made in that homicide.