WIBX’s Top Five Local News Stories Of 2015

The Utica Comets had local hockey fans buzzing through the spring.  Fans packed the Utica Aud as the Comets, in just their second season, reached the American Hockey League Calder Cup Finals. The Comets lost to the Manchester Monarchs in the finals, 4 games to 1.

In July, a runaway train car crashed into an antique locomotive on display at Utica's Union Station.  The locomotive then crashed into the building, causing extensive damage..  Utica Police say a 13-year old boy accidentally released the brakes on the train car.

In a case that garnered national attention, two teens were brutally beaten inside the Word of Life Church in Chadwicks during a "counseling session" in October.  Lucas Leonard died of injuries suffered in the beating and his brother Christopher was serious injured.  Nine members of the Word of Life Church, including the boy's mother and father, were charged in the incident.

Utica Police Chief Mark Williams called it the worst crime scene he's seen in 27 years.  Utica Police found three people dead inside a home on Whitesboro Street in early January.  Paul Bumbolo was charged in the brutal stabbing deaths of his adoptive mother, uncle and step sister.  Bumbolo has pleaded not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect.

It was the announcement that the area had been waiting for.  In August, Governor Andrew Cuomo visited the Quad-C Building on the SUNY Poly campus to announce that General Electric and Austrian chip manufacturer  AMS would be investing a total of $5.5 billion in Nano Utica, creating between 2,400 and 2,500 jobs.