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Table 1 Victim and suspect characteristics by homicide type, National Violent Death Reporting System, 2003–2017*

From: Examining differences between mass, multiple, and single-victim homicides to inform prevention: findings from the National Violent Death Reporting System

 

           Victims

 

     Suspects/Perpetrators**

 
 

Mass homicide

n(%)

Multiple homicide

n(%)

Single homicide

n(%)

Chi-square p-value

Mass homicide

n(%)

Multiple homicide

n(%)

Single homicide

n(%)

Chi-square p-value

Total***

728

7,112

74,623

 

154

3,651

68,530

 

Sex

 Male

351 (48.2) a,b

4,611 (64.8) c

59,351 (79.6)

< 0.001

133 (95.0)

3,067 (92.9) c

54,015 (89.7)

< 0.001

 Female

377 (51. 8) a,b

2,501 (35.2) c

15,251 (20.4)

< 0.001

7 (5)

236 (7.2) c

6,188 (10.3)

< 0.001

Age group (years)

 0–10

116 (16.0) a,b

550 (7.8) c

3,470 (4.7)

< 0.001

0(.)

0(.)

30 (0.1)

N/A

 11-17

74 (10.2) a,b

451 (6.4) c

3,081 (4.1)

< 0.001

5 (4.0)

137 (5.0) c

3,115 (6.9)

0.001

 18-24

132 (18.2)

1,596 (22.5)

17,538 (23.5)

0.05

31 (24.6)

868 (32.0)

15,409 (34.2)

0.02

 25-34

131 (18.0) a,b

1,755 (24.7) c

20,096 (27.0)

< 0.001

42 (33.3)

857 (31.6) c

12,772 (28.4)

0.003

 35–44

87 (12.0) b

993 (14.0) c

12,540 (16.8)

< 0.001

26 (20.6)

450 (16.6) c

6,476 (14.4)

0.002

 45-54

83 (11.4)

788 (11.1)

8,978 (12.1)

0.11

17 (13.5)

261 (9.6)

4,106 (9. 1)

0.20

 55–64

54 (7.4)

506 (7. 1)

5,002 (6.7)

0.43

5 (4.0)

93 (3.4)

1,919 (4.3)

0.11

 65+

50 (6.9)

459 (6.5) c

3,803 (5. 1)

0.001

0(.)

47 (1.7) c

1,198 (2.7)

N/A

Race/Ethnicity

 Non-Hispanic white

407 (55.9) a,b

2,648 (37.2) c

21,943 (29.4)

< 0.001

67 (43.5) a,b

1,020 (27.9) c

14,869 (21.7)

< 0.001

 Non-Hispanic black

181 (24.9) a,b

3,146 (44.2) c

39,806 (53.3)

< 0.001

43 (27.9) a,b

1,456 (39.9) c

29,177 (42.6)

< 0.001

 Non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native

13 (1.8)

136 (1.9)

1,571 (2.1)

0.75

2 (1.3)

38 (1.0)

864 (1.3)

0.55

 Non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander

23 (3.2)

167 (2.4) c

1,158 (1.6)

< 0.001

6 (3.9) a,b

52 (1.4) c

524 (0.8)

< 0.001

 Hispanic***

98 (13.5)

964 (136)

9,623 (12.9)

0.60

14 (9.1)

315 (8.6)

5,063 (7.4)

0.05

Victim-Suspect Relationship

 Stranger

138 (19.0) a,b

515 (7.2)

4,673 (6.3)

< 0.001

    

 Acquaintance/friend

98 (13.5)

776 (10.9) c

9,491 (12.7)

0.25

    

 Child

74 (10.2) b

483 (6.8) c

2,028 (2.7)

< 0.001

    

 Other relative/family member

66 (9.1) a,b

339 (4.8) c

2,009 (2.7)

< 0.001

    

 Spouse/intimate partner

35 (4.8) a,b

530 (7.5) c

7,899 (10.6)

< 0.001

    

 Other person known to victim

30 (4.1) a

635 (8.9) c

5,209 (7.0)

< 0.001

    

 Parent

20 (2.8)

310 (4.4) c

1,477 (2.0)

< 0.001

    

 Other intimate partner involvement

12 (1.7)

88 (1.2)

778 (1.0)

0.32

    

 Rival gang member

8 (1.1)

93 (1.3) c

679 (1.0)

0.15

    

 Victim was law enforcement officer injured in the line of duty

3 (0.4)

30 (0.4) c

138 (0.2)

0.002

    

 Current/former work relationship

0(.)

50 (0.7) c

288 (0.4)

N/A

    

 Other/Unknown relationship

244 (33.5)

3,263 (45.9) c

39,954 (53.5)

< 0.001

    

Suspect/Perpetrator Characteristics****

Mental health problem directly related to incident d

    

13 (10.3) a,b

132 (4.7) c

1,226 (2.2)

< 0.001

Type of mental health problem e

 Unspecified psychosis

    

4 (30 8) b

16 (12.2)

102 (8.3)

0.01

 Unspecified mental illness

    

3 (23.1)

39 (29.8)

358 (29.2)

0.88

 Bipolar disorder

    

2 (15.4)

11 (8.4)

95 (7.8)

0.58

 ADHD

    

2 (15.4) b

3 (2.3)

15 (1.2)

0.01

 Anxiety

    

2 (15.4)

2 (1.5)

27 (2.2)

0.04

 Schizophrenia spectrum

    

1 (7.7)

15 (115)

143 (11.7)

0.90

 Depression

    

0 (0)

18 (13.7) c

66 (5.4)

< 0.001

 PTSD

    

0 (0)

5 (3.8)

33 (2.7)

0.63

 Dementia

    

0 (0)

1 (0.8)

48 (3.9)

0. 14

 Personality disorder

    

0 (0)

1 (0.8)

4 (0.3)

0.71

Suicidal thoughts or behaviors d

    

39 (30. 1) a,b

490 (17.3) c

3,540 (6.4)

< 0.001

  1. Abbreviations: PTSD posttraumatic stress disorder ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder N/A not applicable
  2. *All 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are currently funded to participate in NVDRS, but at the time of this study several of the newer states/jurisdictions had not yet completed a data collection cycle and therefore are not included. States and jurisdictions were first funded to participate in NVDRS in different years. Data for this study comes from the following 37 states/jurisdictions: Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, and Virginia (2003–2017); Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin (2004–2017); Kentucky, New Mexico, and Utah (2005–2017); Ohio (2010–2017); Michigan (2014–2017); Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington (2015–2017); Hawaii (2015–2016); California, Delaware, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (2017). Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington collected data on ≥80% of violent deaths in their state, in accordance with requirements under which these states were funded. Data for California are for violent deaths that occurred in four counties (Los Angeles, Sacramento, Shasta, and Siskiyou)
  3. **Suspect information is reported at the incident level. Percentages are based on the number of incidents with known suspect information: mass (126), multiple (2,826), single (55,468). The following sentence can be used as a guide for interpreting victim-suspect relationship: “The victim is the ____________ of the suspect”. For example, when a parent kills a child, the relationship is “Child” not “Parent” (“The victim is the child of the suspect”). Please note that this sentence is intended to be a general guide. However, some relationships may not be captured by this sentence (e.g., other person known to victim; victim was law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty). The victim-suspect relationship was known for 66% of mass homicide victims, 54% of multiple homicide victims, and 46% of single homicide victims
  4. ***Includes persons of any race
  5. ****Numbers may not sum to total because of missing values
  6. a Statistically significant difference (p < .05) of the prevalence of the characteristic between mass versus multiple homicide
  7. b Statistically significant difference (p < .05) of the prevalence of the characteristic between mass versus single-victim homicide
  8. c Statistically significant difference (p < .05) of the prevalence of the characteristic between multiple versus single-victim homicide
  9. d Applied to any suspect in the incident
  10. e Denominator includes only incidents indicated as directly attributable to mental illness on the part of the suspect. Mental illness categories are not mutually exclusive
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Injury Epidemiology

ISSN: 2197-1714