Nonfatal strangulation is now documented as a frequent form of violence used in domestic relationships (Smith, Mills, & Taliaferro, 2001; Strack, McClane, & Hawley, 2001; Taliaferro, Mills, & Walker, 2001). Research has shown that 89% of nonfatal strangulation cases that came to the attention of law enforcement had a history of domestic violence (Strack et al., 2001).
Despite the alarming nature of homicides in which the offender meets the victim online, or cyber-initiated homicides, little empirical attention has been devoted to this phenomenon. The present study was designed to explore the behavioral patterns found prior to and during a cyber-initiated homicide event. Data on 61 homicide cases from various countries were collected through news media and legal sources. Smallest space analysis revealed that cyber homicides were characterized by four distinct themes: excessive violence, fatal escalation, crime-related incidents, and predatory behavior.
In the United States, official statistics estimate that (when the offender is known) 39.3% of women who were killed were murdered by an intimate partner in 2010, and this proportion increased by approximately 10% between 1993 and 2011 (Catalano, 2013). When women are killed, they are more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than anyone else, and a substantial number of women who are killed by an intimate were abused by that intimate partner before their death.
After declining for over two decades, homicides in the United States rose sharply in 2015 and 2016. Specifically, it rose 11.4% in 2015 and by another 8.2% the following year. The homicide rate among non-Hispanic Blacks rose by 24%, by 15% among non-Hispanic Whites, and by 17% among Hispanics. These increases were comparatively large, if not wholly unprecedented. In total, the percentage increase in the U.S. homicide rate in 2015 was greater than at any time since the late 1960s (Rosenfeld et al., 2017). It is well known that homicides are predominantly intraracial.
Research shows the dangers firearms pose when violent intimate partners have access to them. Victims report that violent intimate partners use firearms in the course of the violence, often to intimidate or make threats (Capaldi et al., 2009; Joshi & Sorenson, 2010; Lynch &Logan, 2015). The literature suggests that violent intimate partners who have access to firearms engage in more severe domestic violence than those who do not.
Research demonstrates that place (community of victim’s home) matters in the study of intimate partner violence (IPV) and intimate partner homicide (IPH). Studies have shown that rural women experience more severe IPV and a higher risk of IPH. Rural women face unique obstacles when subjected to IPV compared with their urban counterparts. These obstacles have led scholars to reason that IPV may be underreported in smaller or more rural areas (Bledsoe et al., 2004; Cook-Craig, Lane, & Siebold, 2010).
This research revisited the claim that victim precipitation (VP) is especially prevalent in situations where women kill their male intimate partners. In these situations, the term “victim” is usually applied to the person who endured the greatest physical harm, even if that person instigated the incident. If the outcome is homicide, the victim is the person who was killed. There is considerable support in the literature for the assumption that homicides involving female offenders are more likely to have been victim precipitated.
Studies find that the most frequently used weapon in homicides is a firearm (Catanesi et al., 2011; Cooper & Smith, 2012). However, the use of firearms varies by the offender’s motivation for the crime. For example, Decker (1996) found that when the motive is instrumental, a firearm is used in incidents involving family members, close friends, and other intimates. He also found that the motive is more likely to be expressive in acquaintance-involved homicides that involve physical force, and in stranger homicides that involve a firearm.
Police training on homicide investigations has always suggested that the “first 48 hours” is the most important time period in a homicide investigation (e.g., Carter, 2013). Homicide clearance rates in Canada show that in about half of solved homicides, a suspect is apprehended within the first 48 hours and up to 70% are apprehended within the first week (Cotter, 2014). Some of these cases are solved quickly because the offender was caught at the scene, there was eyewitness identification, or the offender turned himself in (Beauregard & Martineau, 2014).
Research has repeatedly found that individuals exposed to childhood sexual abuse have a heightened likelihood of experiencing victimization again in adolescence or adulthood (Messman-Moore & Long, 2003; Pittenger, Huit, & Hansen, 2016); and in fact, exposure to childhood sexual abuse may double or even triple the risk of revictimization (Classen, Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005). Revictimization, in turn, is associated with worse mental health outcomes compared with exposure to childhood or adult victimization alone (Thoresen, Myhre, Wentzel-Larsen, Aakvaag, & Hjemdal, 2015).
