The latest report from the Iowa Attorney General’s office shows 20 people were killed in crimes of domestic violence in Iowa in the past year, the most since the state began tracking the deaths in 1995.
The report by the Attorney General’s Crime Victim’s Assistance Division says 14 women, three men and three children bystanders were killed in incidents of domestic violence in 2006. That continues a three-year string of double-digit deaths that saw 10 killed in 2004, 11 in 2005 and 15 in 2006.
One of the victims listed as a bystander this year was a five-month-old fetus that died when the 22-year-old woman who was carrying the child, Miriam Carmona of Muscatine, was strangled and beaten to death. The report says a total of 161 Iowans have been killed in domestic violence murders since January of 1995 when the report began.
The report says of the those killed overall, 108 were women, and 144 of those who died, were killed by men. The report says 168 daughters and sons survive the women and men who have been killed by domestic violence, and 115 of the surviving children are minors.