For Release: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Annual VPC study released for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October
Washington, DC — More than 2,400 females were killed by males in 2023 and of these, 89.9 percent knew their killer. Guns were used in 64.9 percent of the attacks according to the most recent edition of the annual Violence Policy Center (VPC) study When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2023 Homicide Data.
Each year the VPC releases this report for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October. The study uses 2023 data, the most recent available, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and covers homicides involving one female murder victim and one male offender.
[A note on the lack of state rankings. This is the 28th edition of When Men Murder Women and this year presents only national data. While 25 prior editions of the report ranked the states by their rate of females killed by males, due to an ongoing switchover in the way the FBI collects and reports crime data, the information currently available does not allow for state rankings. The VPC hopes that at some point in the near future FBI crime data will once again be sufficiently robust to allow for a more complete analysis of the state-level data, including state rankings.]“Women are most likely to be murdered with a gun wielded by someone they know, and in many instances the murderer is an intimate partner of the victim,” states VPC Government Affairs Director Kristen Rand. “Understanding the circumstances and patterns of female homicide victimization are essential to identifying effective prevention strategies.”
Looking back over the past 28 years, from 1996 to 2023, the rate of females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents dropped from 1.6 per 100,000 females in 1996 to 1.4 per 100,000 females in 2023, a decrease of 13 percent. Since reaching its low of 1.1 per 100,000 females in 2013, the rate has increased, with 2023’s rate of 1.4 per 100,000 females up 27 percent since 2013.
The study also has a separate section focusing on Black females killed by males.
National statistics from the study include the following:
- Nationwide, 2,412 females were murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents in 2023, at a rate of 1.4 per 100,000. Of the 2,331 homicides where the race of the victim was identified, 1,474 were white, 733 were Black, 79 were Asian or Pacific Islander, and 45 were American Indian or Alaskan Native.
- Nine out of 10 victims (89.9 percent) knew their offenders. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 57.1 percent were wives or other intimate acquaintances of their killers. Nearly nine times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers.
- Black women are disproportionately impacted by lethal violence committed by males. In 2023, Black females were murdered by males at a rate of 3.1 per 100,000, two and a half times the rate of 1.2 per 100,000 for white females murdered by males. The percentage of Black females killed by males with a firearm has increased substantially ─ from 51.0 percent in 2011 to 74.7 percent in 2023. In 2023, Black females accounted for 14.0 percent of the female population in the United States, while 31.4 percent of the females killed by males in single victim/single offender incidents where the race of the victim was known were Black.
- Firearms were the weapons most commonly used by males to murder females in 2023. Nationwide, for homicides in which the weapon used could be identified, 64.9 percent of female victims were shot and killed with a gun. Of the homicides committed with guns, 64.3 percent were killed with handguns. The percentage of females killed by males with a firearm has increased substantially from 51.0 percent in 2011 to 64.9 percent in 2023.
- The overwhelming majority of these homicides were not related to any other felony crime, such as rape or robbery. Nationwide, for homicides in which the circumstances could be identified, 91.8 percent of the homicides were not related to the commission of another felony. Most often, females were killed by males in the course of an argument between the victim and the offender.
The study calculates the rate of women murdered by men by dividing the total number of females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents by the total female population and multiplying the result by 100,000.
For a PDF version of the study, please visit http://vpc.org/studies/wmmw2025.pdf.
For a slideshow presenting key findings from the study, click here.
To see previous editions of When Men Murder Women, please click here.
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The Violence Policy Center is a national educational organization working to stop gun death and injury. Follow the VPC on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky.
