A higher proportion of females in Georgia were killed by a lone man than in 40 other U.S. states, according to an analysis of new FBI statistics.
Georgia ranked 10th in the nation, with 82 murders of lone females by one male assailant, says the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based non-profit.
The incidents occurred in 2008, and were culled from the most recently available data created by the FBI for its Uniform Crime Report.
The Violence Policy Center warns about the dangers of gun ownership, and says guns were the murder weapon in at least 40 of the Georgia cases studied in its report, When Men Murder Women.
The data, which came from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Report, indicate that the average Georgia victim was 33 years old, and that over half were black and about a third were white.
For the 76 homicides in which the victim-offender relationship was determined, 95 percent knew their killers. That compares with a national rate of 92 percent. In 64 percent of the cases, the victims were wives or intimate acquaintances of their killers, the Violence Policy Center says.
Only a handful of the killings involved another crime, such as rape or robbery, and murders by men who didn't know their victims were rare.
The national rate of men killing women is 1.26 per 100,000 women. Georgia's rate was 1.66, far below number one ranked Nevada, where the rate was 2.96.
Nevada had 38 such murders but ranked higher than Georgia because of its smaller population.
Texas had the most murders -- 209 -- but with its larger population tallied a rate 1.72 per 100,000, landing in sixth place.
Vermont ranked second, with Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee rounding out the top five.
Arkansas and Missouri tied for seventh, South Carolina rated ninth.
About the Author
