Following a sharp rise in domestic violence fatalities across Ohio and in Cuyahoga County,  advocates are urging residents to watch vigilantly for signs of abuse and to seek help if needed. 

Deaths — which include both victims and perpetrators — rose 37% in Ohio between 2024 and 2025, according to data collected by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. That’s the largest spike over the last 10 years. The network relies on media reports to count the deaths so the higher numbers may be due to more reporting on the topic. 

“There is more violence, and that’s something that we can’t excuse away,” said Maria York, policy director of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. “But the other thing that we noticed in this report is that the media is reporting very well on the homicides.”  

In Cuyahoga County, 20 people were killed in domestic violence incidents between July 2024 and June 2025. That’s more than in the past two years, but not a five-year high. 

The article shares information about violence and abuse. Residents seeking resources about domestic violence can call 216-391-4357 or visit this page. 

In light of the numbers, advocates are working hard this October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, to educate residents on abusive behaviors and share resources for families at risk. In some cases, they’re doing that by sharing their own stories. 

“Most of the women in particular will suffer in silence because they can’t connect how their circumstance is compared to another,” said Betty Halliburton, a domestic violence advocate in Cleveland and a survivor. “So when you are able to bring women like myself together and say, ‘I am one of the survivors of domestic violence, and I chose to fight,’ … I can help other women.”

There are steps that legislators can take to stem the tide, too, York said. Laws limiting abusers’ access to guns is a major one, she said, since the majority of domestic violence deaths result from guns.  

Why are domestic violence deaths rising?

No government database tracks death due to domestic violence. So for the past 10 years, the Ohio Domestic Violence Network has done the work itself: largely by flagging media stories about homicides, then investigating each case using police reports and court records.

York believes news outlets are sharing more details about suspects’ history with domestic violence, which helps the network flag cases for their count. 

But the rise in violence can’t be discounted either, said York. The number of murder-suicides more than doubled this year compared to last year, accounting for about half of this year’s deaths. 

The rise in murder-suicides meant that more than half of those who died this year were male, the majority of whom were abusers themselves.

“I just think this is a very scary time,” said Judge Diane Palos, an administrative judge at the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas’ Domestic Relations Court. “…There’s more male fatalities because … they’re killing themselves after they kill their spouses.”

In Cuyahoga County, 10 of the deceased were victims, eight were perpetrators and two were people caught in the crosshairs. One of the victims was a 15-year-old girl, York said.   

The rising number of deaths matches the increasing number of people asking for protection orders in domestic violence cases filed in Cuyahoga County, Palos said. She has played a large role in helping the court streamline cases to support survivors in the judicial system. 

About 1,400 protection orders were filed in the domestic relations court last year, up about 4% from the year before, she said. That reflects increasing violence, she said. But it may also be due to increased trust between survivors, advocates and the justice system, she said. (The protection orders are different from criminal cases filed by prosecutors in municipal or felony court.) 

“We have community partners who know that they can send people down here, that the person will be treated with respect, will have an opportunity to talk to an advocate,” Palos said. “…We have a lot of community partners who feel safe in referring people here.”

Personal stories used to pull others ‘out the fire’

Cleveland-based advocates such as Halliburton — alongside Yvonka Hall, the executive director of the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, and Cuyahoga County’s poet laureate, Honey Bell Bey — are hoping that sharing their own stories about domestic violence will help others exit abusive relationships. Each year, they give a presentation called “No more tears: When your sweetie ain’t so sweet.” 

The three women spoke with a lunchtime crowd of women, and a few men, at the Friendly Inn Settlement in October. Halliburton told them how she had been beaten by a former boyfriend, at times until she was semi-unconscious. She made up her mind to leave and found a therapist who helped her process the emotions of the decision. 

“Love should never hurt you. So I had to take the necessary time to get healed,” Halliburton told residents. “…You can’t get healed if you’re not willing to reveal. You got to tell somebody.” 

Domestic violence touched Hall’s life from the very beginning. Hall was six years old when her father killed her mom in 1974, after the two divorced. Hall saw her mother die, she said. 

“My life forever changed,” Hall said. “…I looked at that and said, you know, ‘How do I prevent this from happening to someone else?’” 

The three women also shared advice on how to leave an abuser, emphasizing that planning should be done in secret and only in collaboration with highly trusted friends or family. They passed out bags that can assist women in leaving their abuser, packed with first aid kits, deodorant and plastic bags to protect important documents.  

Halliburton said that, at every presentation, she hears from women who are caught in violent or unsafe situations at home — including at Friendly Inn.  

“I tell my story because I want to pull somebody else out the fire,” Halliburton said.  

Strategies for domestic violence prevention

By sharing personal stories of domestic violence, advocates hope to see more awareness about signs of abuse and resources to escape.  

“Abuse thrives in silence, is what we like to say,” York said.  

Outside of awareness-raising, York said the domestic violence network hopes to prevent deaths by domestic violence before they occur. One way to do that is limiting abusers’ access to guns, she said. The vast majority of Ohio’s domestic violence deaths were caused by guns, including the deaths in Cuyahoga County. But the state does not have a law that prohibits people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing a firearm, despite its illegality at the federal level.

“Even though we have a federal law, it gets really complicated to enforce that on the local level,” York said. “And so we need a parallel state law.” 

A bill to make this change was introduced in the state Legislature in 2023 but did not advance. 

Ohio did recently pass a law to make strangulation a felony, an effort to prevent domestic violence homicides or at least improve prosecution of them. 

Cuyahoga County itself also has some unique initiatives to address domestic violence, York said. The county is one of the few areas in the state that has a specialized court docket for high-risk domestic violence offenders, she said. And some police departments in the county use a lethality assessment when they arrive on-scene of a domestic altercation, which gives the person experiencing violence a sense of what type of risk they might face from their partner. 

These efforts may be why Cuyahoga County has lower numbers of domestic violence deaths than Franklin County, where Columbus is located, York said. Franklin County has topped the Ohio Domestic Violence Network’s list repeatedly in the past six years. 

“Cleveland does … have a lot of great prevention strategies,” York said.