With gang-related killings declining in Orange County's largest cities, the total number of homicides in 1994 dropped markedly from the previous year, which had shattered county records for violent deaths, officials said.

Throughout Orange County, 179 people died at the hands of someone else by year's end, an 18% drop from 1993's tally of 219 and a return to levels seen prior to 1993, according to the county coroner's office.

The lower murder rate was cheered by police and prosecutors, who said the decline in the overall number of slayings was partly because of the drop in gang killings, which were seen as the main cause for the record slaughter the year before.

Countywide figures for gang killings in 1994 were not yet available, but police noted reductions in the largest cities. In Santa Ana, the number of slayings classified by police as gang-related dipped to 40 from 48 the previous year, while the number of homicides dropped to 72 from 86, according to coroner's figures.

In Anaheim, police said gang killings dropped from 16 in 1993 to nine in 1994, as the total number of killings decreased from 32 in 1993 to 27 in 1994.

"Our gang-related shootings were down, which contributes to a lower homicide rate," said Sgt. Steve Rodig, who heads the homicide detail at the Anaheim Police Department.

Authorities could not pinpoint a reason for the decline but suggested that a broad range of law-enforcement efforts, such as the Tri-Agency Resources Gang Enforcement Team, or TARGET, and other programs aimed at gangs have helped cut down on the violence.

"I'd like to think it's due in part to law enforcement and social programs," said Assistant Dist. Atty. John D. Conley, who oversees homicide and gang prosecutions. "Gang stuff goes in spurts. I'm not prepared to say that we alone are responsible."

Others speculated that the reduced murder rate was probably little more than good fortune and said the statistics reveal more about the unusual level of violence in 1993 than about efforts to suppress violence in 1994. Fueled by a record number of gang killings, the 219 homicides in 1993 was a sharp increase from the 186 recorded the year before. Orange County had 155 homicides in 1991 and 174 in 1990.

Researchers who study homicide rates said murders are, statistically, random events that make single-year fluctuations impossible to interpret; a big increase is likely to be corrected by a large drop.