Domestic Violence-Related Murder-Suicide: The Final Act of Control

Today we welcome Danielle Edwards, Victim Services Coordinator for Gwyneth County Sheriff's Office, and Kylie Elliott Senior Program Coordinator for Training and Engagement at the Georgia Commission on Family Violence. Drawing on their expertise in real-world case studies, the conversation will explore the unique risks and challenges faced by survivors, the warning signs that often precede tragedy, and the systemic barriers that make escaping abuse of situations so difficult. Listers will also learn about the emotional aftermath for families and communities, as well as the importance of trauma-informed post-vention, and ongoing support for survivors. The episode aims to shed light on these critical issues and highlight resources and approaches for meaningful intervention and healing. This episode was recorded on location at the 2026 conference on crimes against women in Dallas, Texas, and includes the discussion about homicide and suicide. You can read the guest bios and more about their workshops on our website, conferencecaw.org. I'm Maria McMullen, and this is Genesis, the podcast. Danielle and Kylie, welcome to the show. Thank you, welcome. Thank you. We're glad to be here. I'm happy to be with both of you at the 2026 conference on crimes against women. Tell me, is this your first time either of you or both of you being at the conference? No, this is my third year. I'm really excited to be back. Are you presenting again this year, Kylie? I sure am. And what's your workshop about? So we've got two workshops this year, both on the topic of murder suicide, which is something we've put a lot of time into in Georgia. One is called Echoes of Violence, and that's going to be talking about post-vention as prevention in murder suicide cases, and then the other one is called when leaving isn't safe, and that's talking about coercive control as a tactic in a murder suicide case. And we're going to cover a lot of ground related to those workshops today. Danielle, have you been to the conference in the past? This is my second conference. Okay. So I was here last year, and I really enjoyed myself, and I'm super excited about being back. And like Kylie mentioned, being able to present both of those workshops. Yeah, because you're co-presenting, right? We are. Well, I'm excited to hear more about the topic. We're going to discuss it today. And before we discuss the case study, help us understand domestic violence related murder suicide through the data. Great. So kind of starting just nationally, very basically, approximately 1200 Americans annually lose their lives to murder suicide. And about 62% of those are intimate partner fatalities or intimate partner fatalities. We also know from the national data that we do have that 95% of these involve female victims and killed by male perpetrators. And 93% of those cases also result in fatalities brought on by firearms. So that's what the national data tells us. And to be honest, the national data is really limited. The only really national statistics we have come out of the violence policy center who does a buy-in or report called American roulette. And in that Georgia, we learned that we rank Georgia ranks third in the nation at the rate of murder suicide. So when we found that statistics, we really knew we had to dive deep. And so in Georgia, we started really studying the data and kind of collecting data on murder suicide all the way back in 2016. And we've been doing it ever since. And back then, we found that 38% of the Georgia's domestic violence homicide sides were involved perpetrators who died by suicide. And what's alarming is that the trend is trending north in a terrifying way. By 2024, we found that over half of all our fatalities are now related to murder suicides. And that results in an 80% increase over the last five years. That is skyrocketing. It is. And we're finding that trend. I don't believe Georgia is an anomaly. It's just that very, very few states and nationally are retracting it. So that's something we're really kind of finding. We're also finding that the firearms and the gender with regard to perpetration and victimization are true in our state as well as they are nationally. We're also finding just a couple more stats to throw at you is that 43% of bystanders in murder suicides are children. That's not surprising to me, although it is very, very alarming. I think you shared with me when we spoke a few weeks ago that so Georgia is number three in the nation. But Texas and Florida are right up there, right? I do. I believe they may just barely beat out Georgia. So it's it's a real problem for a lot of our states. Yeah, we should be worried even if one of our states has data that's trending in that direction related to murder suicide. Let's walk through the Georgia murder suicide case study that you're presenting at conference and highlight the warning signs and challenges the victim encountered. Okay, yes. So the case that we're presenting on is a murder suicide that happened in 2022. And it involved a couple that had been together approximately 10 years. The victim in this case, she had one daughter that she brought into the relationship and then she and the perpetrator in this case had two other children. And during the course of the relationship, one of the things that really stood out to Kali and I is that he had never laid a hand on her. That was one of the things that she said he'd never ever touched me. But what was very present was this coercive control, which we know that Evan Stark is, you know, he's the one that coined that phrase. It's basically a pattern of behavior that creates fear and gains compliance. And so in that particular case, never any violence towards her, but he did have a lot of other tactics, namely threats of violence towards himself constantly and repeatedly threatening suicide. And then also, you know, he would threaten her, threaten to kill her either, you know, just casually or even through conversations with their children, he would mention it. She really thought it was manipulation. She did not see these as red flags. She did not actually believe that he was going to carry out any of these things that he talked about. I think when we talk about that coercive control that was present in this case, it was one of the biggest barriers, right? Because she didn't fully understand the level of danger that she was in. Again, like I said, she thought that she was being, you know, it was manipulation. She did not consider herself to be an abusive relationship. I think the lack of physical violence also made it challenging for her when she reached out for help because she again did not articulate, you know, that there was any violence. So when she reaches out to a shelter, it's full. You know, maybe you can go to a homeless shelter, but you're going to have your young girls there. Maybe that's not the best place for you. Even her thoughts around reaching out to police, not really being able to articulate that this is a dangerous situation. And I think additionally, the perpetrator built a lot of barriers for her financially and otherwise. So in that ultimately, you know, ended in disaster where he shot her, our primary victim in this case, physically disabling her and permanently, he killed their six-year-old daughter and then he shot their nine-year-old daughter five times, also, you know, leaving her with horrific injury and scars. So that's the case that we're going to present here at the conference. Any idea if she had received a lethality assessment during any of the conversations or interactions she's had about the, you know, leading up to? No, and that's the thing, right? So when she reached out to the shelter because she wasn't articulating, and again, this is not about like blaming her, it's like just her perception. She did not. She was just thinking, "I want to get out of this, he's manipulative." That sort of thing, "I'm isolated from my family." But there wasn't any safety planning that happened at that point, even, you know, reaching out to law enforcement. There was, there was no lethality assessment or anything like that for her. So for, especially for our professionals who are listening to this conversation, help us understand how coercive control and financial abuse play a role in preventing victims from escaping dangerous situations very similar to the one you're describing. Precisely. So the national network in domestic violence, they basically say that in 99% of domestic violence relationships, there is financial control, right? And that can look like multiple things, you know, not allowing a person to have access to money. In our case, specifically, she did try to leave and do that on a very limited income, but he convinced her to return with the promise that any, that is she broke the lease or any of that that he would cover all of those expenses. Well, he didn't. And so what he did in fact, what, or what he did do was ruin her credit and her rental history. So then it made it even more difficult for her to try to leave in the future. Yeah, I can see how that would make it, you know, just again, one of the many reasons that answering the question, why doesn't she just leave? Well, she can't, right? Because she doesn't have any money. She has complete lack of access to resources. She doesn't want to take her children or she wants to take her children with her, but she's trapped because again, we're back to the financial question, right? So let's talk about the systemic barriers that exist, making it difficult for victims to safely leave and how these can be addressed. and what are the most significant risk survivors face when attempting? to leave an abusive relationship. Right. So I think, you know, that financial abuse is really such a barrier. And so finances are always such an issue that keep a survivor present, right? So I think that one of our biggest systematic barriers, especially in this case and many others, is lack of funding and lack of capacity for domestic violence programs, right? They don't have enough space for all the survivors that need it. They don't have enough staff because of financial issues. They have higher turnover, you know, lower ability for training and those kind of things than all of those things kind of compiled to create and weaken the support that survivors are able to receive. In our client's case, like I said, like we said, she called shelter. She asks for help. They told her, sorry, we're full. You can call back later. They didn't safety plan with her. They didn't do a danger assessment. And you know what, of course, she never called them again because when survivors are brave enough to call and reach out and they're shut down, the message is really clear. You're on your own. And she knew she was. And so they rarely reach out again. Another huge systematic barrier is the lack of case movement and prosecution, right, in domestic violence cases. These cases, especially ones where there's not extremely obvious physical violence, are extremely difficult to charge, prosecute, and convict. And that lack of accountability is another huge barrier that again tells victims, you're on your own, you know, for ending this. So those are just two of the ones that are really huge. But of course, there are so many others, you know, immigration issues that currently, you know, today are a big concern for many survivors being concerned that prevent them from leaving that systematic barrier with the way we are kind of right now in that situation. And kind of just the struggle that there are really lacking community resources that kind of can help survivors plan and find ways out. And I also think there may be a lack of education for women and others about what leads up to murder suicide because everything that we've just discussed, then this is just, you know, this one case, but I know that this is true in many instances is that there is no physical violence in advance. There is coercive control. There is other manipulation. So the lack of education or awareness around those things that lead up to domestic violence murder suicide is that in itself is alarming and probably needs to be addressed, right? And survivors see that those behaviors and things that are leading up to the murder suicide as manipulation. And so they don't take them seriously. And it's true. They often are manipulation, but they aren't only manipulation, right? Right. Both things can be true at the same time. Exactly. And survivors don't have that understanding or that awareness. They don't have that understanding, but if lethality assessment protocol is implemented in a report or a domestic violence call, potentially, that could be revealed, could it not? Potentially. In a situation where there's so much coercive control, it's going to be, they're going to score much, much lower on a lethality assessment than they would, you know, in many other cases. So it's questionable whether they would score high enough on a lethality assessment to kind of create the referrals in those kind of situations that we're looking for. You know, in our client's case that, you know, for our case study, we're talking about she wouldn't have scored high enough on the lethality assessment because she didn't recognize to report. Then what's available to a person in a situation like that? Honestly, I mean, the key is that when she, that education needs to happen when they do reach out, something they need to understand. We need to help them understand that it's not manipulation, you know, that it's about control and powering that they are an abusive relationship and then we need to safety plan with them. Our client never received safety planning. She did not know that she was in danger. So making her aware of that would be helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Now, in this particular case that we're covering today, the intended victim actually survived, at least one of the intended victim survived and that is the partner. But one of the daughter's side and another one was also shot and seriously injured. So we need to talk a little bit about surviving family members because even though these are kind of labeled domestic violence, murder or suicide, not everyone, it becomes a fatal victim in these cases. So how do murder suicides impact surviving family members and the broader community, both immediately and in the long term? One of the things about murder suicide that is particularly devastating is that they involve multiple fatalities. I mean, no homicide is, I mean, one homicide is too much, right? But in a murder suicide, there's multiple fatalities and so on average, this murder suicide incident might leave behind like 16 survivors on average. And you know, that doesn't take into account that many of these survivors are children or other family members who witnessed the violent event or again have lost multiple loved ones in a single incident. And also seen where these incidents happen at places of employment. And so you have either the primary victim or the perpetrator's colleagues all witnessing this event. So when you talk about like the immediate family members, but then we're like, you know, broadening it out a little bit and now we're talking about a place of employment. I know there was a recent murder suicide in Georgia that happened that started in the parking lot. So there were like three or four storefronts that all witnessed this event. And so highly traumatic, right? And so I think, you know, when we talk about that immediate impact, we're talking about shock, we're talking about trauma, we're talking about grief. And some of that is immediate and long term, right? Because, you know, family dynamics shift dramatically, especially if we're talking about surviving children, right? And so now we're talking about custody and guardianship. And we're talking about families picking sides and trying to figure out, you know, what's going to happen with these kids. People taking sides, encouraging the children to do the same. I think we talk about the unexpected financial burden, you know, when there's a survivor, there's all of these medical expenses that were unexpected and then ongoing, right? Because the victim that we're presenting, it's what four years out and she's still experiencing, you know, medical challenges, right? I think another thing, there's like the media narrative. So sometimes these stories are sensationalized. And like in our case, we're talking about 10 years of a relationship. But if you get just to the media story, it doesn't give any context. It's just like he snapped or we don't know what happened. Whereas we know the backstory there's 10 years, so it doesn't give people that are watching the news. It doesn't give them much context. It doesn't help them to understand the dynamic of abuse or coercive control. I think, additional when we're thinking about the media, I can think of at least three cases where the perpetrator went live on social media before in leading up to the incident. And so these are things that are going viral. And so these family members and communities are just constantly watching this traumatic thing over and over again. A lot of our surviving families that we've worked with, they've said that that was the most difficult thing for them was what was said in the media, what was talked about in the media. And I think the last thing I'll say about that is the limited access to resources. A lot of survivors don't know what to do after a murder suicide. They don't know where to begin, they don't know who to reach out to. They're completely overwhelmed, trying to navigate all of these systems, and they don't know what to do. And it makes me think, I think a perfect example of that is what just happened in Louisiana. I believe her name was City Councilwoman Tabitha Taylor. I remember seeing her in the aftermath of that on the news begging and weeping, like please help us. Someone community, please reach out, please help us. And so I think that just really speaks to how survivors, they don't know where to start, communities don't know where to start. So that's what I would say about that short and long-term impact. So I think the case you're referring to in Louisiana is where the eight children were murdered by, well most of them were murdered by their biological father and one was not the biological child of that person. And that was then a murder suicide because he did take his own life, correct? Yeah, that really was a big case that a lot of people remember that was featured in the media. But again, to your very astute point, we don't have the context of what was going on leading up to all of that. I mean we've heard some of the information. So it's, I suppose, good for us to know about the story, but we don't know the whole story. Let's talk about some of the unique challenges survivors face when coping with the complex grief and guilt that follow these tragedies. So I would say that first and foremost, we know that grief is a normal reaction to a loss. But when we talk about a murder suicide, survivors are experiencing something that we call traumatic or complicated grief, which is grief that is complicated by the trauma of the loss event, right? And so in this case, we're talking about murder suicide. When you have that sudden, violent loss of one or more loved one, more than one loved one, it really just complicates the grieving process. There's an increased risk for depression, anxiety, PTSD symptoms. There is anger, confusion, and in some instances, there are questions that'll never be answered. Specific to a murder suicide, there is no prosecution. If it is a completed murder suicide, where the perpetrator does successfully die by suicide, those loved ones of the primary victim, they don't get to have that day in court. So that complicates the grieving process for them. I think another challenge is that in some cases, their surviving family members are grieving the victim and the perpetrator, right? We're talking about, you know, adult children, where it's their father and their mother. So we're talking about fathers. We're talking about brother-in-laws. Sometimes it's uncles. We've worked with survivors, you know, where they're grieving both. And there's not really a safe space to have that conversation, to say that I'm grieving someone who did this horrific act. It's not really a safe place. I think-- I mean, there's so many things. There's disenfranchised grief that they're experiencing, which is grief that is not supported by society or that is considered taboo and not socially accepted. You know, we see that a lot with like the victim blaming. Well, why didn't you just leave? You know, these families are grieving, but what's the message? Why didn't you just leave? Or-- I mean, there's just lots of-- just lots of language around that. I think, oh, there's so much stigma that's associated with it. But one thing that I really like to point out is the American Foundation on Suicide Prevention. They really talk about the complications that perpetrators loved ones experienced after. And they said that, in addition to grief, there's a lot of guilt. There's humiliation, negative perceptions within their community. And I think there's alienation, lack of support. But I think this really-- I think homesied in is that they say that homicide, suicide-law survivors-- so many of their family members-- are often viewed as family members of criminals rather than family members of someone who died by suicide. And so it's really complicated. I'm not here to say it's like this really simple thing, because their loved one did do a criminal act. But because of that taboo and that idea that you did this criminal act, then those loved ones don't have that safe space in community support after a murder of suicide. That is a very complex situation. I don't really even pretend to know how to sort through it. So perhaps we can talk about post-vention at this point. What does that look like for survivors of murder suicide and why is it so critical? Sure. So post-vention refers to interventions provided after a trauma loss to support survivors, right? Reduce their stigma, aid in the grieving process, and prevent further harm or future harm. It's such as things that are linked to the trauma, of the contingent and complicated grief, right? So it's those post-vention interventions. And it was originally developed and the concept was originally developed to support around suicide. What we've done in Georgia is we've really taken these core principles of post-vention and applied them to all survivors that are left behind and impacted by a murder suicide. And we do that for a couple of reasons. One is, again, like Danielle said, so many of the survivors that are left behind have a relationship and loved both individuals who died, right? And so that's so incredibly complicated when you're told, you're allowed to grieve your mother, but you aren't allowed to grieve the loss of your father. It's not okay. That creates the grieving process when that happens. Also, survivors of homicide, any homicide, all experienced generally, stigma, isolation kind of, and because of that, there are an increased risk for mental health challenges. So we know this, and because of this, we know that murder suicide survivors benefit from coordinated support that promotes healing, reduces stigma and blame, and then therefore prevents long-term psychological harm. - So I've also heard you say we're read in some of your presentation information that post-vention is prevention. Let's talk about that. - Great. So research shows that people who have lost a loved one to what they call an intra-familiar homicide, which is where the person harmed and the person responsible are family members, right? So that's that intimate relationship. So it says that they face a higher risk of mental health challenges. And so unfortunately, without intervention, some survivors may cope by using drugs or alcohol to numb. We've seen that in our work, and this is their self-disclosure, you know? You might see survivors' engagements like self-harm or other risky behaviors. And as we already discussed, you know, they're at a greater risk for like PTSD and other, you know, depression and anxiety and things like that. And research just shows that if we have early intervention, we can kind of prevent some of those long-term risk factors. - Yeah, that really does make sense. Now let's talk a little bit about what's going on in Georgia. So can you share more about the Georgia Commission on Family Violence's approach to supporting survivors, including the support for survivors of murder/suicide project? - Yeah, absolutely. So our project has grown out of conversations with survivors. What do you need? What's missing? What's working in, you know, for you with your current needs? And so we're then trying to fill those gaps, right? So the first thing that we do within our project is we do provide direct support to survivors, right? And here's something different we do. In the domestic violence community, it's super common. We follow survivor's leads. We wait for them to reach out. We don't call victims of domestic violence and be like, hey, you want to come to shelter? You know, we wait for them to reach out. We do it a little bit differently with support for survivors of murder/suicide because they don't know to reach out. They don't know that they're eligible for services. They have no idea. So we do do direct outreach. And then again, that direct advocacy for them. We also provide technical assistance because people are best supported when they're supported by their own local community. And so we provide technical assistance to train our local Georgia communities and communities all over the country, how to best support these survivors and provide that direct support themselves so that kind of more people are out there supporting more survivors. We also have created and lead what we call the Georgia Murder/Suicide Response Network, which Danielle is part of as well. It's a network of licensed clinicians that have undergone and participated in specialized, advanced grief and trauma training for providing therapeutic services to individuals. So we maintain that network where the clinicians come together. They kind of stack cases. They work on problems. They talk about the unique needs of these survivors. And then Georgia also provides murder/suicide survivor specific support groups because one of the biggest things survivors of murder/suicide say is, I don't fit in any of these groups that people send me to. I can't go to that grief group. It doesn't fit these people don't understand me. So creating a place of understanding where these people can find community with people that don't look at them like, oh, you know, that's a scary, that's an interesting story has a huge impact on healing. - How long has Georgia been doing that work? - So the, really, we started our study in 2016, really the majority of the work has happened over the last six years, five to six years. - And it's in that time I'll say that you're also seeing an increase in these murder/suicides, right? - So more and more needs to respond to. - Yeah, exactly. How do these community partnerships, coordinating outreach contribute to breaking the cycle of silence and unaddressed trauma? - Yeah, so I think to piggyback off of what Kylie just shared, it's supporting your local community, right? That's how the partnerships and coordinated outreach, it's by responding. Like she said, survivors are best supported by people that are in their community. But if we're talking about communities at large, it maybe aren't, you know, or maybe thinking, how do we support these survivors? I think it, you know, it starts with like, maybe stopping and taking a look at the murder/suicide that are happening in your community. And maybe, you know, reaching out to survivors and kind of seeing, you know, what are the needs, you know? Have people been reaching out to you? Have you been getting the resources and support? And then, you know, I guess tailoring the response to that because that's really, you know, what we've done in Georgia is it's really been survivor-driven. What are the needs of the survivors in, you know, in this community? I don't think we've mentioned it, but, you know, we do get, we've gotten survivors from other parts of the country reach out. And so, you know, it's trying to help them navigate what's happening in their community. We don't necessarily know that specifically in Georgia, which is why I think it's important for individual communities to kind of take a look at what's happening in their community and what's happening with their survivors to try to figure out. You know, would we have in place that can support the survivors of our community? I think that's great advice, but I'd also ask, what advice would you give to professionals and community members who want to improve their response to domestic violence and murder or suicide? So, I mean, I think we all know, and I think most of us all can agree, like prosecution-based advocacy, they do a great job at supporting, for example, loved ones impacted by homicide, right? But my advice for those cases, in all cases, is for communities to widen the lens, right? For example, in prosecution-based cases, we're often supporting next-of-kin, right? They support those most immediate family members, but like Danielle said earlier, we recognize that at least 16 survivors are impacted in every murder/suicide case. So, the lens is much wider in these cases, and there are a lot of people out there that we're neglecting to provide support, too. So, we really want to encourage people to widen the lens. Also, when we talk to partners across the country, we often hear, "Yeah, I think we've got that covered," you know, that kind of-- we'll hear that. But that's not what the survivors are saying, right? So, we want people to really take a look at, like, if a murder/suicide happens in your community, what's happened for those individuals left behind, right? Are we waiting for the survivors to call? Because survivors of murder/suicide rarely reach out. They usually are pretty desperate by that point when they do. So, we really would encourage communities and advocates and professionals to kind of create a model. We've got a protocol that we, you know, that we share to kind of give some guidance or some kind of framework or structure about reaching out to survivors impacted by murder/suicide and building supportive structure within the community around supporting those to prevent further harm for postvention. Yeah, that's also a good advice, you have both full of good ideas on this topic and so many others. Are there ways listeners can support survivors or advocate for stronger protections in their own communities? I think, like we said, you know, we'd love for people to kind of look at, learn from, adapt that protocol that we've created for Georgia and make it work for them. But more than anything, what we want to drive home for listeners is the biggest piece is to recognize survivors as a murder/suicide, as co-victims of the traumatic event, make them eligible for supportive services that already exist within the community. We've kind of looked at it and we don't think people need to re-create the wheel. We don't think this is a major funding initiative, right? So, this isn't something that has to be put off until a new grant cycle is awarded. Really, we think this population is just one that we've sort of inadvertently and unintentionally overlooked. And, you know, that's complicated for survivors by the stigma and shame that goes along with domestic violence/murder/suicide. So, you know, we just really think that if we can recognize them, see them, and make sure they're not forgotten, we're going to do a whole world of help for them. Is there somewhere people can find the protocol that you've developed in Georgia? So, we've attached it as part of our call materials, so we've included it there. It's also available on the Georgia Commission on Family Violence's website. So, you know, it's definitely something we're sharing freely. When is that website? www.gcfv.ga.gov. Kylie, Danielle, thank you so much for talking with me today and for the work that you do. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to give women and abusive situations a way out. We are committed to our mission of providing safety, shelter, and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence, and impact. Join us in creating a societal shift on how people think about domestic violence. You can learn more at genesisshelter.org and when you follow us on social media, on Facebook and Instagram @genesiswomen's shelter, and on x@genesisshelter. The Genesis Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by call or text, at 214-946-HELP-214-946-4357.