Mental Health
The epidemiology of murder-suicide in the United States, 2016-2022 Katherine Keyes* Katherine Keyes Victoria Joseph Caroline Rutherford
Murder-suicide events occur when an individual commits one or more acts of homicide shortly before taking their own life. These events are often high profile, given the high level of violence involved, yet the epidemiology of murder-suicides, including trends over time and geographic concentration, has received limited research attention. The present study estimated murder-suicide rates and characteristics in 32 US states from 2016 through 2022. Overall, 5,964 deaths were involved in murder-suicide events during this time period (an average of 852 deaths per year), including 3,246 homicide decedents and 2,718 suicide decedents. The number of homicide decedents per incident ranged from 1 to 7, with 85.7% of events involving one homicide decedent, 10.6% involving 2, and 3.7% involving 3 or more. Among homicide decedents, 73.4% were men, and 43.4% were between 35-64 years of age. Among suicide decedents, 91.3% were men, and 54.3% were between 35-64 years of age. A total of 88.3% of homicides and 90.1% of suicides involved a firearm as the primary weapon in the death. Deaths between romantic partners were most frequent; 53.6% of homicide decedents were the spouse, ex- or current romantic partner of the perpetrator. Figure 1 shows the trend over time in the murder-suicide rate in the US; murder-suicides were lowest during the study period in 2019 (0.43 per 100,000) and have increased to 0.48 per 100,000 by 2022. By state, for those with data, murder-suicides are highest in Alaska (0.87 per 100,000), Arizona (0.70 per 100,000), Colorado (0.64 per 100,000) and Oklahoma (0.81 per 100,000). In summary, murder-suicides are increasing in the US, and particularly concentrated in romantic partnerships and predominately committed with firearms.
