With 47 homicides in 1993, Ventura County's death toll climbed to the second highest in 14 years and the fourth highest since such records were kept.

Authorities agree that it was an unusually violent 12 months--the average for the previous 17 years was 33.6 slayings--but it was lower than the 48 killings in 1991 and the record-setting 59 in both 1979 and 1974. In 1992, the county had 32 homicides.

"I don't see this as an indicator of a major rise in crime," said Craig Stevens, a senior deputy coroner. "It's just part of the roller coaster. This happened to be a worse year than some others."

Causes for the killings ranged deep and wide. Robberies, drugs, the economy, poisoned relationships, mental illness and gang loyalties all spurred people to take the lives of others.

"It's human emotion gone awry, and someone ends up dead because there's a weapon around," said Todd Howeth, a deputy public defender. "Small things that used to be solved with fists--people pull out guns and start blasting away."

Some killings erupted out of petty arguments when words escalated to weapons. Still other homicides simply defy explanation.

"We're getting more and more cases where it's a very trivial issue that someone has died over," said Ventura Police Sgt. Bob Anderson. "I don't think the average citizen out there has a clue how much violence has become a part of our standard of living in this area."

Among this year's 47 homicides, two husbands killed their wives, two workers killed their bosses and, in the worst shooting rampage in county history, an unemployed computer engineer slaughtered four people and wounded four others in less than 15 minutes. Four people died at the hands of police, up from two officer-involved shootings last year.

Sixty-four percent of the victims (30 people) died of bullet wounds--roughly reflecting a 1988 U.S. Department of Justice study finding that 60% of the nation's homicides involved a firearm.

Another 11 victims were stabbed, four were strangled--all women--and two were bludgeoned.

The homicides took place just about everywhere in the county, with the exception of Simi Valley.

But they were not evenly distributed. Eighty-five percent occurred in the western part of the county and 40% of all the slayings occurred in Oxnard. Ventura and Port Hueneme also had a higher number than in previous years. Ventura had 10 homicides, up from an average of three. And Port Hueneme had five, including the unsolved stranglings of two women and the stabbing of an 87-year-old deaf woman in an apartment complex for senior citizens.