Nine Murder-Suicides Happen Every Week in America. Most of the Killers Are Men.

 

Nine Murder-Suicides Happen Every Week in America. Most of the Killers Are Men.

A 2026 report from the Violence Policy Center found that murder-suicides continue to claim more than 1,000 lives in the United States every year, averaging approximately nine incidents every week.

The study examined 237 murder-suicides reported during the first six months of 2025. Those incidents resulted in 526 deaths: 289 homicide victims and 237 perpetrators who died by suicide.

The numbers reveal a striking pattern:

• 92% of the perpetrators were men.
• 76% of the people murdered were women.
• 65% of the incidents involved an intimate partner.
• When an intimate partner was murdered, 99% of those victims were women.
• 87% of the incidents involved a firearm.
• 45 of the people murdered were children or teenagers under 18.
• Another 27 children survived after witnessing some aspect of a murder-suicide.
• 80% occurred inside a home.

The Violence Policy Center estimates that murder-suicides result in approximately 1,052 deaths every year, while noting that the United States still lacks a comprehensive national system specifically tracking these cases.

For the Accountability Archive, one finding is especially difficult to ignore: these are frequently described simply as murder-suicides, but the people murdered did not choose suicide.

When 92% of the killers are men, 99% of murdered intimate partners are women, and children are dying alongside them, this isn't just a collection of isolated tragedies. It's a fucking pattern, and we should be keeping track of it.

Source

Violence Policy Center, American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States, Ninth Edition, April 2026. The report analyzed murder-suicides reported from January through June 2025.