
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 11, 1994                   TAG: 9407110089
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

IN SPOUSE MURDERS, HUSBANDS DO KILLINGS TWO-THIRDS OF TIME

Husbands kill their wives more often than wives slay their husbands, and parents are twice as likely to murder their children than the reverse, according to a Justice Department study released Sunday.

"Murder in Families" was based on more than 8,000 homicides in large urban counties where at least one murder defendant in the case went before a court in 1988.

The study found that 16 percent of murder victims, 1,308 people, were members of the defendant's family. Of the remainder, 64 percent were murdered by someone they knew and 20 percent by strangers.

Husbands and wives were the family members most likely to be involved in family murders; they were victims or defendants in 41 percent of the cases, according to the study by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

When spouse murdered spouse, the husband was the assailant in almost two-thirds of the cases, the survey revealed. However, among black couples, wives killed their husbands at about the same rate as husbands killed wives - 47 percent of black spouse victims were husbands and 53 percent were wives.

Patrick Langan, one of the study's researchers, said he could not explain why black husbands and wives killed each other at virtually the same rate. He said it was one of several unexpected trends uncovered by the study.

Memo: below

by CNB