In April 2026, Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax was shot and killed by her husband while their divorce was pending.

She had done what she was supposed to do. She had initiated the legal process to leave Justin Fairfax, the former lieutenant governor of Virginia. It didn’t save her.

What happened to Wanzer Fairfax has a name: femicide.

Femicide is the intentional killing of women on the basis of gender. Women are most often killed by their partner, former partners or another person who believes they have a claim on their life. It happens in living rooms and driveways and parking lots. It happens during marriage, divorces, separations and in the weeks after a woman finally walks out the door.

As a scholar focused on the intersection of firearm violence and intimate partner homicide, I examine the policy and structural conditions that determine who is at risk and where prevention efforts are falling short.

Intimate partner homicide doesn’t affect all women equally. Black women have the nation’s highest rates of homicide by an intimate partner, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Intimate partner violence by the numbers

A 2024 study in The Lancet tracking homicide deaths from 1999 to 2020 found that Black women ages 25 to 44 are killed at nearly four times the rate of their white peers.

Spring 2026 saw three such cases make national headlines.

Just prior to Wanzer Fairfax’s death, Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen of Coral Springs, Florida, was shot to death – allegedy by her husband. Also in April, in Louisiana, Shaneiqua Pugh was shot by her husband, as was Christina Snow, the mother of three of the killer’s children. Pugh and Snow are both expected to survive. Eight children, however, were killed.

Three cases. Three states. One month. All, sadly, preventable.

Intimate partner homicide claims more than 1,800 lives in the United States every year. Nearly half of victims are killed by a current or former intimate male partner – not a stranger. These aren’t random acts of violence.

Separation is one of the most dangerous times in an abusive relationship. This is why we cannot see the death of Wanzer Fairfax and others like hers as one-off tragedies. They represent a........

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