Examining the Factors that Impact Suicide Following Heterosexual Intimate Partner Homicide: Social Context, Gender Dynamics, and Firearms

Abstract

Despite a wealth of research on intimate partner homicide, research on intimate partner homicide followed by suicide of the perpetrator is sparse. Existing studies on intimate partner homicide-suicide: tend to be descriptive, not keeping pace with quantitative advances in the epidemiological and social sciences; have yet to examine how context impacts intimate partner homicide-suicide; and are typically limited to male perpetrators, given small localized samples of female-perpetrated intimate partner (homicide and) homicide-suicide. This study uses data on 7584 heterosexual intimate partner homicide and homicide-suicide cases distributed across 2465 places and 42 U.S. states from the National Violent Death Reporting System (2003–2018) to examine the victim and perpetrator characteristics, relationship dynamics, situational factors, and contextual features that influence the likelihood of committing suicide following intimate partner homicide. Hierarchical logistic regression models indicate that victim characteristics that increase the vulnerability to victimization (alcohol and drug use, mental health problems, less than some college education) decrease the odds of committing suicide following intimate partner homicide. Similarly, situational (victim weapon usage, additional perpetrators) and contextual (concentrated disadvantage, residential instability) risk factors decrease the odds of committing suicide following intimate partner homicide. Conversely, impairment of the perpetrator (alcohol use, mental health problems) and a more intimate victim-perpetrator relationship (spousal relationship, caregiver) increases the odds of homicide-suicide. Additionally, results indicate that firearms play an integral part in homicide-suicide as well as in decreasing the gender gap in homicide-suicide. The findings suggest that the internalization of guilt by perpetrators of intimate partner homicide may play a key role in subsequent suicide. Practically, limiting firearm exposure will not only reduce the lethality of intimate partner violence, but will decrease the odds of perpetrator suicide following intimate partner homicide. This is particularly true for female-perpetrated homicide-suicide, which is unlikely to occur without a firearm.

A classification of combined homicide–suicide: An update—Part II: Intrafamilial homicide–suicide

“…Zimmerman and colleagues [11] have recently reported a study of 7584 heterosexual intimate partner homicides (5458, 71.97%) and H–S cases ( n = 2126, 28.03%) in the United States from 2003 to 2018 using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System. The very factors that increase vulnerability to victimization, i.e., alcohol and drug use, mental health problems, and less than some college education, decreased the odds of suicide after an intimate partner homicide.…”

Jealousy as a correlate of intimate partner homicide‐suicide versus homicide‐only cases: National Violent Death Reporting System, 2016–2020

“…Although a number of studies have used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) data to examine correlates of intimate partner homicide-suicide, few have included the construct of jealousy in their research. Zimmerman et al (2023) used data from years 2003 to 2018 in NVDRS to examine factors that impact suicide following heterosexual intimate partner homicide cases. In their study jealousy was not statistically significant.…”

Intimate Partner Femicide–Suicide in Eswatini: Offenders, Victims, Incident Characteristics and Sociocultural Contexts

“…The past decade especially has witnessed burgeoning scholarship on intimate partner femicide–suicides (see Cavlak et al 2023; Dayan 2021; McPhedran et al 2018; Richards, Gillespie, and Givens 2014; Solinas-Saunders 2022; Sorrentino, Cinquegrana, and Guida 2022; Zimmerman, Fridel, and McArdle 2023). The vast majority of these studies have focused on countries in the global north, including Australia, Canada, Italy and the United States (Banks et al 2008; Cavlak et al 2023; Dawson 2005; Dawson and Carrigan 2021; Easteal 1994; Koziol-McLain et al 2006; Krulewitch 2009; Lund and Smorodinsky 2001; Morton et al 1998; Solinas-Saunders 2022; Sorrentino et al 2022; Zimmerman et al 2023). Concomitantly, intimate partner femicide–suicide events elsewhere have received comparatively little attention in the professional literature, with the effect that a great deal is currently unknown about the issue, particularly the impact of sociocultural factors on the scope and patterns of the crime.…”