The deaths of Diane Opper and Emma MacDonald, two local women allegedly killed by their husbands within a month of each other this spring, have brought renewed attention to domestic violence and the warning signs that often precede it.
While the circumstances of each case remain different, domestic violence experts, prosecutors and victim advocates across the Valley say fatal violence rarely emerges without warning. Instead, they describe a pattern that frequently begins with controlling behavior, isolation, intimidation or stalking before escalating into physical violence.
The number of domestic violence cases have ebbed and flowed over the past decade in Massachusetts and western Massachusetts, but those who work with survivors say the dynamics behind them are often similar.
“Domestic violence is not always physical, leaving bruises and resulting in homicide. It doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. It tends to kind of escalate over time,” Safe Passage Executive Director Marianne Winters said. “Sometimes that time is very short, but it escalates through various tactics that an abuser will use to maintain control. It also takes different forms.”
That understanding has increasingly shaped how advocates and law enforcement officials approach domestic violence cases. Northwestern Assistant District Attorney Erin Aiello, who works in the office’s Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, said investigators look for high-risk factors such as stalking, strangulation, access to firearms and major life changes, including divorce proceedings or child custody disputes, when assessing the potential for escalating violence.
The statistics
Aiello explained in an interview with the Gazette that deaths caused by domestic violence in Massachusetts steadily increased year-by-year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, rising from 10 in 2020 to 26 in 2022, before dropping considerably to seven in 2025.
Across the Valley, five domestic violence deaths took place during that same timeframe: one each in Springfield and Holyoke in 2020 and 2022, respectively; one in Easthampton in 2023; and the two most recent deaths this spring in Belchertown and Amherst.
There was also a jump in domestic homicide cases between 2007 and 2010, which Aiello noted correlated to time leading up to and following the 2008 Great Recession. She said hard economic times could possibly have exacerbated the issue, noting that when investigating domestic violence cases, the district attorney’s office looks for high-risk factors.
Aiello explained that she has seen increasing instances of stalking and domestic assaults with weapons in domestic violence cases over the last five years. She cited National Institute of Justice statistics that showed 76% of female homicide victims in the U.S. had been stalked a year prior to their death.
“These certain high-risk factors, when present in a relationship, are some of the things that we look at. So it could be stalking, it could be strangulation,” she said. “When there’s a firearm in the home, that tends to put people more at risk as well.”
Data collected by Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts coalition that addresses sexual and domestic violence, also indicated a noticeable shift toward younger victims than in years past. In 2024, nearly 69% of domestic homicide victims were younger than 35. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2024, there were 30 deaths from domestic homicide with victims aged between 25 and 34 — the highest number of fatalities among any age group.
As domestic violence cases tend to be handled on an incident-by-incident basis, often involving numerous law enforcement agencies, Aiello explained that prosecutors in the region are making an effort to recognize patterns of behavior or life circumstances that are considered high risk.
“There often tends to be a minimization of potential violence in the home, if there is, let’s say, a divorce pending or child custody issues … there’s almost an inclination of ‘Oh, was this just a family law situation? That’s why it’s coming to court.’ But those kind of things are high-risk factors,” Aiello said. “When you have someone’s way of life changing — maybe there’s a concern for reputation loss, they’re potentially losing visitation of their children, they’re getting a divorce and their life is changing, maybe becoming unemployed or military discharge — that change can create an added stressor and can also result in high-risk factors.”
Coercive control and isolation
Aiello added that the DA’s office is working to better address coercive control — or the process in which someone will use threats, isolation or monetary abuse to control the actions of his or her partner — in an effort to protect victims before an abusive situation turns violent.
Gov. Maura Healey signed bill House Bill 4744, which expanded the definition of domestic abuse to include coercive control, into law in 2024.
Monica Moran, who lives in Amherst and serves as manager of Domestic Violence Prevention Projects for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, said the inclusion of coercive control in the legal definition of abuse made a “huge difference” in victims’ ability to seek restraining orders and the public’s perception of what abuse and domestic violence looks like.
“Coercive control is controlling behavior that is not just annoying, it’s scary to defy — if I don’t do this thing, I don’t know if I’ll be safe,” Moran explained. “It’s a pattern of behavior over time and it includes things like isolation, economic control, stalking or putting somebody down, not letting them practice their faith — just controlling their everyday movements.”
She continued, “Controlling what you eat, controlling what you wear, until you really have lost your sense of self and your sense of autonomy … maybe it’s not an imminent physical danger, but if those things work and you can completely control your partner, you maybe won’t ever use physical violence.”
Moran said stalking is a large indicator of controlling behavior that can lead to violence. She said instances of people putting tracking devices on their partners, or teens demanding that they have each other’s phone passwords or locations at all times have become commonplace.
Noting that social media influencers have repopularized antiquated beliefs about power dynamics in relationships, Moran said increased education around healthy relationships — especially for younger students — might help curb the presence of unhealthy or abusive relationships before they begin.
She said young boys, in particular, are often not included in education on healthy relationships, which makes them susceptible to either experiencing abuse or becoming abusive themselves.
“What the data shows is that boys are the outside of the classroom; they are having fewer conversations than any other group about relationship health and abuse, and so we want to talk to everybody,” she said. “Young people who are abused need help. Young people who are at risk of becoming abusive need help, so let’s not just focus on some kids. Let’s talk to everybody.”
Because domestic abuse almost always includes some form of isolation from friends and family, it’s often challenging for victims to seek help. She said, ultimately, it’s up to the general public to check in on those they’re concerned about.
“The scariest thing to me in domestic violence is isolation, because once your partner has isolated you, it’s hard to get out of these relationships on your own,” she said. “The more we’re all talking to people and saying something like ‘You seem nervous around your partner, I hope everything’s OK, but please know I’m here,’ the easier it is to speak out. It’s got to be on all of us, because most people who are abused don’t seek help and don’t use domestic violence agencies, they don’t call the police, they don’t go to court; if they get help, they get it from their friends and their family.”
As isolation remains one of the key factors of abuse, Winters explained that changes in national policy in recent years have exacerbated the risk of domestic violence for marginalized groups, including immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community.
The helpline
During COVID-19 lockdowns, when many people in abusive relationships were confined with their partners, the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission joined forces with other agencies seeking to curb domestic violence in the region to create a helpline for those concerned that they were at risk of becoming either victims or perpetrators of domestic abuse.
Moran, who answered calls to the helpline for roughly a year after it was first established in 2021, explained that those who called often did not fit the stereotype of an abuser and noted that most reported feeling deeply unhappy with their lives.
“I answered those calls for the first year and these are not happy people. They would say things like ‘I am miserable. My life is a complete disaster. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t live like this anymore,'” Moran said. “It’s this award-winning chef, it’s our neighbor, it’s our cousin — it’s not these monsters over there in a cage. It can be anybody.”
Winters, who leads Safe Passage, the longtime Northampton nonprofit whose mission is to end domestic violence and help survivors in Hampshire County and parts of Franklin and Hampden counties, stressed that a plan is not always necessary when reaching out for help. She encouraged anyone who believes they may be involved in an unhealthy or abusive relationship to call the helpline, even if they are unsure what steps to take next.
“You don’t have to have decided what you’re going to do in order to call — there are people who think, ‘Well, I need to have my bags packed, and I’m ready to go and then I’ll call the domestic violence program.’ Some people find ways for the relationship to stay intact, and that’s what they want — they just want it to be safe for themselves or for their children,” Winters said. “It’s an untenable choice if someone, for instance, has to choose ongoing violence or potential homelessness and poverty, so people can be at any stage of violence in the relationship and seek help, and our approach is not to convince the person always to leave the relationship.”
Rather, Winters explained that the goal of Safe Passage is to address what someone’s needs are and how they can build and maintain safety.
Winters urged people to examine their own relationships and ask themselves whether they have been feeling isolated or controlled by a partner. She also called on the broader community to recognize signs of abuse among friends, acquaintances and coworkers.
“If someone works in a public retail space, for instance, and that person is very often calling in sick, not coming to work, seems quiet and afraid because they’re working in a storefront, we’re teaching that manager how to talk with that person, naming what they’re noticing, but then also helping to pave the way to build some safety within that workplace,” she said. “We’re seeing more and more people learn these skills, and in fact, that’s our prevention approach; it’s to build a community of bystanders, or people who are not experiencing domestic violence themselves and are not committing domestic violence, but learn how they can respond if someone is showing signs or even discloses that that they’re being victimized in their relationship.”
Winters described a survivor’s first attempt to reach out — whether to a support service or a trusted friend — as a “make-or-break” moment in escaping or improving an abusive situation. However, she noted that the sense of isolation often associated with domestic violence can be overcome through community support.
“Because domestic violence impacts every aspect of a person’s life, all of the people in every survivor’s life can have an impact on whether or not they can rebuild that sense of community and break the isolation,” Winters said. “A criminal, or legal approach to combatting this certainly has its place and is important, and at the same time, in terms of prevention, we need to look at a community-wide problem. Building safety is a community job; it’s not solely about seeking a restraining order or reporting … it’s fixing a crack in a community’s foundation.”
