Domestic violence deaths down from 2021, with 12 killed in Iowa through August

William Morris, Des Moines Register
·3 min read

Domestic violence deaths are on the decline this year in Iowa. Officials would like to see them decline further still.

Between January and August, 12 people were killed as a result of domestic violence, the Iowa Attorney General's Office announced this week. That compares to 17 deaths over the same period in 2021

Iowa had seen a spike in domestic violence fatalities over the prior two years, according to figures collected by the Attorney General's office. There were 17 deaths in all of 2020, at that time the most Iowa had seen in a decade. 2021 was more violent still, with 20 deaths in total. The deadliest year on record since 1995 was 2006, with 22 killings.

State officials have attributed the 2020 and 2021 increases to the stresses on families during the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, director of the Attorney General's Crime Victim Assistance Division, noted that people in unsafe relationships had fewer options to cope with them under lockdown conditions.

"Some victims can’t leave their homes and services haven’t been as accessible," Tibbetts Murphy said in a news release. "These issues have limited the ability to serve victims. And sadly, research has shown when services are limited, we see a rise in domestic violence homicides.”

From April: Iowa had 20 domestic violence deaths in 2021, continuing pandemic increase

Family and friends console each other at a funeral service for Eden Montang at Cornerstone Church in Ames. Two Iowa State University students, Eden Montang, 22, of Boone, and 21-year-old Vivian Flores of West Des Moines, were shot and killed on June 2 in the church parking lot by Montang's former boyfriend. The Iowa Attorney General's Office classified the deaths as domestic violence.

It's likely that the easing of pandemic restrictions has contributed to the decline in deaths, said Lindsay Pingel, community engagement director with the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

"I think it’s safe to say, yes, access to services and support is easier now that the pandemic is slowly fading away," she said.

But while fewer conflicts may be escalating to killings, that doesn't mean there are fewer people in precarious relationships, Pingel said. On the contrary, the coalition and its member organizations around the state have been "incredibly busy" ever since the state began to emerge from lockdown, she said.

"We knew that for people who were already struggling pre-pandemic, to then be hit by COVID and then come out and face, possibly they lost their house, possibly someone in their house has lost their job … their needs would be a little bit more ongoing if they were already in an unsafe relationship," she said.

Pingel said her group does not have up-to-date statistics on metrics such as the number of people requesting services so far this year, adding that those figures will be compiled at the end of 2022.

Domestic violence deaths include high-profile public attacks

The latest figures from the state show that nine women had been killed through August this year by current or former partners. The other three victims were classified as bystanders. Seven of the 12 so far this year died by gunfire.

Five of the deaths, including all three bystander deaths, are connected to two prominent public shootings: those of Eden Montang and Vivian Flores, who were killed June 2 outside Cornerstone Church in Ames by Montang's former boyfriend; and those of Nicole Owens, Michael Valentine and Michael Cox, all fatally wounded by Owens' boyfriend and another man during an April 10 shooting at Taboo Nightclub in Cedar Rapids.

While such prominent public killings aren't a majority of domestic violence deaths, they're not unusual either, Pingel said.

"It is not unsafe to say that someone will lose their life or be hurt in a public or private sector to gun violence if they are in an unsafe situation," she said.

Tibbetts Murphy, announcing the latest numbers in a news release, called firearms the "primary cause of death" in domestic violence cases and noted that 55% of killings since 1995 have involved firearms.

While 2022 is on track to be less deadly than the prior year, Tibbetts Murphy said officials want to see the numbers drop much, much further.

“While the report shows a slight decline in the number of domestic violence deaths in the state through the first eight months of 2022, these tragic deaths are still too many,” she said.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa domestic violence deaths down through August from 2021