Research into the profiles of men who kill their partners

[MilkGoatee]

BBC Woman's Hour today (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007ylq - seems currently not available).

Academic research into 350+ cases, identifying 8 stages - starting even before the relationship that ends with the death of the woman - in the timeline of the killer.

Its been widely reported which can only be a good thing. They start off love bombing, move quickly into control, then rage when they lose their perceived control.

''Domestic abuse: Killers 'follow eight-stage pattern', study says''
www.bbc.com/news/uk-49481998

Seven steps men go through before murdering partners identified by criminologist
www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/08/28/seven-steps-men-go-murdering-partners-identified-criminologist/

The eight steps she discovered in almost all of the 372 killings she studied were:
1 A pre-relationship history of stalking or abuse by the perpetrator
2 The romance developing quickly into a serious relationship
3 The relationship becoming dominated by coercive control
4 A trigger to threaten the perpetrator's control - for example, the relationship ends or the perpetrator gets into financial difficulty
5 Escalation - an increase in the intensity or frequency of the partner's control tactics, such as by stalking or threatening suicide
6 The perpetrator has a change in thinking - choosing to move on, either through revenge or by homicide
7 Planning - the perpetrator might buy weapons or seek opportunities to get the victim alone
8 Homicide - the perpetrator kills his or her partner, and possibly hurts others such as the victim's children

I think its also a positive change to look at offender behaviour rather than focus on that of the victim.

I think what she said in her advice to women that fall prey to such men, to "slow it down" - which would be in stage 2, was very good advice. Difficult, in particular if you feel love-starved and attention starved, but it's good advice for many things, including when you find yourselve in a "love-bombed" situation.

@Inebriati, thanks for outlining the steps, I hadn't gotten 'round to reading up more, so thanks for the links also.

What struck me in particular as well, was that nobody had actually done any research in this area before - while it's such a frequent cause of homicide. And that practitioners (s/w, therapists, police) have come across it so frequently that they all recognised the stages.

Invisible Women, eh? Which reminds me, I should order that book, as that one and The Remarkable Life of the Skin, two of the six books nominated for the Royal Society Science Book 2019.

Invisible Women, eh? Which reminds me, I should order that book

Yes, yes you should - I now randomly approach multiple women's issues starting with examples from the book - it really draws people in (my brother kept asking for more and more when sharing with him, he has asked to borrow the book after my mom finishes with it). I've decided to buy a copy for each of my friends as I expect it will light a fire in the bellies of each them (my copy won't survive the rounds and I need mine for reference!).