Domestic violence deaths have dramatically surged in Ohio, according to the most recent annual fatality report by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, which recorded a 37% increase year-over-year.
Of the 157 fatalities between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 95 were victims and 62 were perpetrators. More men, 82, than women, 75, died—though most victims were women, and most attackers were men.
Eleven of the fatalities were minor children, according to ODVN.
Thirty-six of the state’s 88 counties were touched by domestic violence deaths, with Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties leading the list. And there were more than 40 documented cases of murder-suicide and family annihilation, accounting for more than 80 of the 157 deaths.
Anti-domestic violence advocates comb through news stories and information from member organizations around the state every year to assemble the report. Lisa DeGeeter, ODVN senior director of policy and prevention, said in an interview Tuesday attackers are acting more aggressively and more quickly.
“What we see is the incidents are becoming more severe, injuries are more severe, and we know that there’s a lot of risk factors,” DeGeeter said.
Among those risk factors, she said, is a history of strangulation, a victim seeking or obtaining a protection order, and a person leaving their abusive partner.
“We’ve got cases in this report where people filed for divorce that morning and were dead that afternoon, they filed for protection orders on a Tuesday and they were dead on a Wednesday,” DeGeeter said.
She said she believes more cases are being documented, too, because law enforcement agencies have become better in “identifying and naming” domestic violence.
Advocates celebrated recent legislative wins Tuesday in the Ohio Statehouse atrium, including a new law banning the use of an electronic tracker, like an AirTag, without consent. Gov. Mike DeWine signed the law in late 2024 and it went into effect in March.
The network is lobbying for Senate Bill 174 right now.
