Cassandra Fulton, 38, worker in a disability rights organization was tied up and stabbed in the throat by her husband.

Ann Strickland, 49, mother of two children, a grandmother, and a textile worker was set on fire in her sleep by her boyfriend.

These three cases are not fictional plots for an episode of “Law and Order.” They are excerpts from the Georgia Fatality Review Project, Annual Report 2005 and represent only three of the 107 domestic violence homicides recorded during 2004 in the state.

In order to establish a pattern of common characteristics among the victims, perpetrators and the crimes, the report studied 19 specific cases disclosing the names and the events leading up to their murders.

The Georgia report raises some issues that are alarming to say the least:

•  In 95% of the cases, the victim was the woman
•  63% of the victims were employed outside the home
•  68% were financially independent of the perpetrators
• 85% of the homicides were inside the home of the victim or the perpetrator

These cases dispel many commonly held perceptions and most alarming of all is the fact that in each case, the victim had been intimate with the perpetrator.

Although there are some common traits to suggest the ability to commit such a crime, the report clearly establishes the fact that the potential can in fact go undetected by outsiders.

Family, friends and co-workers are most likely to detect these danger signs exhibited by the perpetrators studied in the report:

• Threats to kill the victim
• History of domestic violence against the victim
• Violent criminal history
• Evidence of child abuse
• Drug and alcohol abuse

The second annual report on Georgia fatalities represents only one tiny fragment in the ongoing study of this global epidemic. The problem goes beyond borders and involves economic and social issues that the public at large is left to contend with.

According to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Report, “the health cost of rape, physical assault, stalking, and homicide by intimate partners exceeds $5.8 billion each year: $4.1 billion is related to medical and mental health while $1.8 billion is reflected in productivity loses.”

The numbers compiled by the CDC do not include the cost and expenditures incurred in the criminal justice system.

The problem of violence and murder among intimates is so rampant that the U.S. Department of Justice tracks the incidents annually as a separate category. According to one report, there are more than 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girl friend per year. Additionally, 3 million women are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.

The Journal of American Women’s Association reports that on average more than 3 women in the USA are murdered daily by their husbands or boyfriends. Nationally homicide is the leading cause of death of all pregnant women.

Ending Violence Against Women written by Heise, Ellsberg and Gottenmoeller, the report claims, “Around the world, at least one in every 3 women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in their lifetimes.”

Viewed by many as an act worse than death, Amnesty International reports that 135 million girls and women have undergone forced female circumcision and the rate is increasing by 2 million girls annually.

Although race and ethnicity are not contributing factors in the epidemic of violence against women, numbers complied by the Archives of Internal Medicine for the ear 1997 show that black women comprised 53% of the violent deaths occurring inside the home.

All these reports document the presence of this blight on society, but few have attempted to pose or answer the ultimate question: “Why are men beating, mutilating, and killing their loved ones at these alarming rates?”