A parent of a woman killed by her partner commented that if this eight stage escalating anger/pattern is better understood we might save some lives. Taken from an excerpt on the BBC News website, Dr Monckton Smith said women account for more than 80% of victims killed by their partners - and most of the time, the partner is male.
To conduct her study, she looked at all cases on the Counting Dead Women website where the woman had had a relationship with the perpetrator - as well as several extra cases such as those of male victims killed by their male partners.
The eight steps she discovered in almost all of the 372 killings she studied were:
â– A pre-relationship history of stalking or
abuse by the perpetrator
â– The romance developing quickly into a serious relationship
â– The relationship becoming dominated by coercive control
â– A trigger to threaten the perpetrator's control - for example, the relationship ends or the perpetrator gets into financial difficulty
â– Escalation - an increase in the intensity or frequency of the partner's control tactics, such as by stalking or threatening suicide
â– The perpetrator has a change in thinking - choosing to move on, either through revenge or by homicide
â– Planning - the perpetrator might buy weapons or seek opportunities to get the victim alone
â– Homicide - the perpetrator kills his or her partner, and possibly hurts others such as the victim's children
The only instance where a stage in the model was not followed was when men did not meet stage one - but this was normally because they had not had a relationship before, she said.