Tara Carman / Kimberly Ivany / Eva Uguen-Csen / CBC »

More than three-quarters of victims were women. Most of the accused, 78 per cent, were men.

Intimate-partner homicides in Canada are among the most traumatic and horrific of crimes, often occurring in the victim’s home, scarring families and communities for decades. Our investigation found more than 400 people, mostly children, lost parents to domestic violence over the course of five and a half years.

What’s more, these crimes are preventable. There are known warning signs that a relationship could turn deadly, so we set out to find how many were present in Canadian cases. Future stories in this series will take a closer look at what can be done.

CBC’s investigation tracked known predictors of homicides in relationships and the extent to which they were present in each case.

These included:

  • Whether the victim had previously reported violence or harassment by the accused to police.
  • History of choking or strangulation.
  • Pattern of coercive or controlling behaviour.
  • Previous threats to kill the victim.
  • Threatening the victim with a weapon.
  • Recent or pending separations.

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