Beyond the Statistics: An Examination of Killing by Women in Three Georgia Counties

In this article, we report the results of an extensive examination of the county homicide files on all the known cases (N = 42) of homicide committed by females in Burke, Columbia, and Richmond Counties of Georgia between January 1, 1990, and September 24, 1999. We describe demographic information about victims and offenders, the victim-offender relationship, and the methods, circumstances, and roles of the accused female perpetrators. The details, which we have gathered from the files, add depth to the study, often bringing to light the more personal dynamics surrounding homicide incidents, which cannot be included in larger studies. We discuss our findings on the homicides committed by females in these less densely populated areas in light of former studies, which have focused on females in larger, more densely populated areas of the United States.