If you’re experiencing abuse or partner violence and need help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or you can chat with an advocate on their website. SafeHaven of Tarrant County's crisis hotline is 1-877-701-7233, and resources are available on their website.
Six women in Tarrant County died at the hands of intimate partners in 2023, the lowest number since 2016, according to a new report.
The annual report comes from the Tarrant County Intimate Partner Violence Adult Fatality Review Team, a partnership between the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office and SafeHaven, the county’s domestic violence service provider.
SafeHaven President and CEO Kathryn Jacob helped present the report at a Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday. In an interview, she acknowledged the progress but said there is still work to be done.
“We need that number to be zero. It needs to be zero in a 12-month period. And that is the goal,” she said. “While we are grateful that the number is six, that is six families who are devastated by something that should never, ever happen."
The report defines intimate partner homicides as killings that result from “an ongoing pattern of abusive behavior that can include physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, or psychological aggression.” Offenders in these homicides can be former or current partners of the victim.
The age of the victims in 2023 ranged from 36 to 58. All were killed with guns. None had filed a protective order or contacted SafeHaven before they died, according to the report.
Four out of six victims died in a "completed or attempted" murder-suicide. Advocates tend to think of suicide threats as a manipulation tactic to keep a victim in a relationship, according to the report.
Murder-suicides are making up a bigger proportion of homicides, which means advocates need to tackle the problem in a new way, Jacob said.
“We're currently in a research process, and I think once we determine the best way, the best move forward, we will probably ask for funding to support that kind of work and then take action," she said.
The year 2016 was “astronomically bad” for intimate partner homicides in Tarrant County, Jacob said. The fatality review team was formed, in part, in reaction to the 16 homicides that year.
The next year, SafeHaven formed a high-risk team to identify the county’s most vulnerable victims and the offenders most likely to be abusive again.
The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office also reviews every family violence case filed as a misdemeanor, said Emily Kirby, the chief of the DA’s Intimate Partner Violence Unit.
“We’re really looking at the ground level of law enforcement and prosecution to say, hey, this is a serious thing, and we need to treat this seriously from the beginning so that people don't fall through the cracks,” she said.
The DA’s office also trains law enforcement about domestic violence cases, so patrol officers and detectives can identify trends and challenges the county needs to be aware of, Kirby said.
Jacob and Kirby credit these efforts, along with others, for bringing the number of homicides down in Tarrant County since 2016.
The number has trended downwards since then, except for 2020, which saw a big spike in intimate partner homicides.
That year, 17 people died in Tarrant County.
The COVID-19 pandemic did not cause domestic violence, Jacob said. What it did was isolate people with their abusers.
“The first homicides we saw were in March of 2020, and we had actually gone six months without a homicide,” Jacob said.
The Texas Council on Family Violence tracks family violence fatalities each year, too, with a different definition than Tarrant County’s fatality review team. The Council’s report counts people killed by intimate partners or stalking perpetrators.
By their metric, Tarrant County saw eight such homicides in 2023, 12 in 2022 and 11 in 2021.
Tarrant generally sees fewer intimate partner homicides than counties of comparable size, according to the Council reports. In 2023, Dallas County had 26 homicides, and Bexar County had 14.
At the meeting Tuesday, County Commissioner Manny Ramirez noted the fact none of the victims in 2023 had a protective order against their abuser, and the importance of making sure people reach out for help.
Jacob agreed.
“It’s actually fairly common, when folks reach out, they end up surviving,” she said.
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