Most often by men against women
By Jennifer Mascia for The Trace and Chip Brownlee for The Trace
This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.
This story was published in collaboration with The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, policy, and power.
A day after New Year’s, 2025, a 91-year-old man fatally shot his 89-year-old wife in their house in Camarillo, California. He called the police to confess before killing himself. “They were inseparable for the 64 years they were together,” according to the couple’s joint obituary.
Last November in upstate New York, a 69-year-old retiree struggling with his mental health killed his 68-year-old longtime girlfriend and then himself in their home. A neighbor discovered their bodies. “I just don’t know what happened to him,” another neighbor said about the retiree. “He was just a good guy.”
Gun deaths overall have been declining in recent years, but murder-suicides in which at least one of the victims was age 65 or older are higher than ever, according to a Trace analysis of data from the Gun Violence Archive. At least 134 older adults were killed in murder-suicides last year, a slight rise over 2024 and the highest number since GVA began compiling data more than a decade ago. Another 85 older adults perpetrated a killing before dying by their own hand.
GVA tracks shootings through media and police reports, so it may not capture every incident. Still, it is one of the most comprehensive sources of data on gun violence in the United States. The Trace took a closer look at the murder-suicides and whether there are points of intervention for people at risk.
What the Data Shows
There were 679 gun-related murder-suicides in the United States last year. In 144 of them, or 21 percent, at least one victim or perpetrator was 65 or older.
The circumstances behind the murder-suicides of older adults varied. Illness was a motivating factor in at least 15 percent of them. In several cases, the perpetrator was the victim’s full-time caregiver.
A couple of shootings followed disputes over inheritance. Two other shooters reported financial struggles before pulling the trigger. A few couples left notes saying the decision to die was mutual, but most shootings appeared to be unilateral actions on the part of the shooter. In many cases, the motive will never be known — not even to the families.
In more than half of the cases we examined, the perpetrator fatally shot their spouse or a current or former romantic partner. In just over a quarter, the perpetrator killed their parent or child, or another immediate family member. Family annihilations — in which someone kills multiple members of their immediate family — accounted for 16 percent of the incidents. Over the past two years, family annihilation has become a twice-daily phenomenon in the United States.
Women made up 80 percent of the victims in last year’s murder-suicides among older adults. The oldest victim was 102. Her 75-year-old son-in-law fatally shot her and her 73-year-old daughter in La Porte, Indiana, in May 2025. A neighbor said the victims had health problems and that the son-in-law had been taking care of them.
All but two of the shooters were men. The oldest perpetrator, a 92-year-old man in Mesa, Arizona, killed his 93-year-old wife and then himself at their senior group home in October.
Several of the incidents involved couples whose bodies were discovered during welfare checks instigated by neighbors or family members, sometimes days or weeks after the killings. In those cases, a motive was difficult to discern — and in a few cases, police couldn’t even tell who the shooter was.
Only a few cases involved a documented history of domestic abuse. In August last year, a 70-year-old man fatally shot his 69-year-old wife and 40-year-old daughter at their mansion in Rolling Hills, California, before killing himself. The couple was in the middle of a divorce. Both victims had a restraining order against the shooter.





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