The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
If you are experiencing relationship abuse, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788.
Domestic violence fatalities spiked in Ohio this past year.
There were 157 intimate partner relationship fatalities in 108 cases from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, according to a new report from the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. There were 114 fatalities in the previous report.
This is the tenth year of the report, which the Ohio Domestic Violence Network compiles using statistics from media reports of intimate partner relationship fatalities.
Ohio fatalities in the last 10 years:
- 157 in 2025
- 114 in 2024
- 112 in 2023
- 112 in 2022
- 131 in 2021
- 109 in 2020
- 91 in 2019
- 115 in 2018
- 101 in 2017
- 81 in 2016
Of this year’s fatalities, 95 were victims and 62 were perpetrators. There were 75 female fatalities and 82 male fatalities. 84% of all fatalities were a result of gun violence. 144 people were shot in 108 cases and only 12 people survived. 56% of the primary victims killed were people of color.
Slightly more than half (55%) of perpetrators had a criminal history and 37% included felonies. 16% of perpetrators had a history of stalking and 12% of perpetrators had a history of strangulation.
Eleven cases required SWAT responses and one Amber Alert was issued. One police officer was shot and survived. Another law enforcement officer was shot and killed responding to an intimate partner violence call.
The youngest victim in the report was four months old and the oldest victim was 89 years old. Eleven children were killed — four were murdered by a parent and two were killed by their mothers’ boyfriend. 36 children saw a parent’s murder.
Three teenage girls were murdered by teenage boyfriends and three pregnant women were killed by their babies’ fathers, according to the report.
The relationship was ending or had ended in at least 35% of all cases. 40 cases involved a murder-suicide and four were attempted murder-suicide.
All surviving perpetrators have been charged, according to the report.
Intimate partner violence fatalities happened in 36 of Ohio’s 88 counties in 2025. Franklin County had the most with 33, followed by Cuyahoga County with 20.
