Types of Intimate Partner Homicides Committed by Women: Self-Defense, Proxy/Retaliation, and Sexual Proprietariness

Summary: Margo Wilson and Martin Daly began scientific work to explain intimate partner homicides (IPHs). Key to their work was women's increased risk of IPH victimization relative to men. In the 1990s, many U.S. jurisdictions implemented Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committees (DVFRCs) to improve responses to potentially lethal abuse. We report findings from 117 closed heterosexual IPH cases collected by the Denver Metro DVFRC 1991-2009. As expected, IPHs perpetrated by women against men are frequently motivated by self-defense. Although Wilson and Daly’s “sexual proprietariness” is primarily characteristic of men killing women, we find it applicable to some women killing male mates.