The Official Website of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association (MDAA)

District Attorneys Association

Understanding and Preventing Intimate Partner Homicides

The District Attorneys and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security

Team Up to Understand and Prevent Intimate Partner Homicides

In an effort to better understand and to help prevent domestic partner homicides in Massachusetts, the EOPSS and MDAA drafted a data collection survey utilized by the 11 District Attorney’s Offices to review details of 47 intimate partner (IP) homicides that occurred between 2005 and 2007.  The EOPSS initiated this effort by meeting with MDAA, Jane Doe, Inc., the Governor’s Council to Address Sexual and Domestic Violence and the Department of Public Health to gain a better understanding of the circumstances and characteristics of intimate partner homicide.  The 11 District Attorneys conducted a three-year review of homicides where the victim was a spouse, former spouse, live-in partner, former live-in partner, boy/girlfriend, or former boy/girlfriend of the assailant.  The EOPSS then published two reports:  Massachusetts Intimate Partner Homicide Review – An Overview of District Attorney Cases between 2005 and 2007 ; andAnalysis of Intimate Partner Homicides in Massachusetts – An Overview of Supplementary Homicide Report Cases between 1986 and 2007. 

The following are highlights from the Massachusetts Intimate Partner Homicide Review – An Overview of District Attorney Cases between 2005 and 2007:

  • The number of intimate partner homicides has increased each year from 2005 through 2007.
  • The distribution of IP homicides was fairly even across most DA offices.  Worcester, Essex, and Middlesex Counties had the highest number of IP homicides, while Dukes, Hampshire, Franklin, Nantucket and Norfolk Counties had no IP homicides (as per the definition of IP homicide used for this analysis).
  • IP homicide victims and assailants were usually very close in age and generally of the same race.
  • Most IP homicide victims were female (85%) and most assailants were male (87%).
  • Victims and assailants were generally married (55% of cases).
  • The assailant committed suicide within 24 hours of the homicide in 28% of the cases.
  • Intoxication and illegal drug use did not factor into the homicide for many of the cases analyzed.
  • The most common motive for IP homicides was the ending of the relationship (20% of cases).
  • IP homicide victims were most commonly killed (37%) in the home shared by the victim and assailant.
  • Almost half (45%) of assailants were charged with a previous violent crime.  Of those charged with a previous violent crime, all had at least one prior charge involving some type of assault.

Information learned from this review will help direct policy relative to IP homicide prevention and prosecution.  To obtain a full copy of each report, please click on the hyperlinks above.