The first homicide in Shelby County in 2026 came on January 4th when Ray Dowdy, 88, shot May Dowdy, 81, to death inside their Memphis home. He was charged with second-degree murder. He said he got angry in a disagreement and lost control and shot her.
In April, Jackson Hooper pleaded guilty and accepted a prison sentence of 40 years for shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend Ellie Young after a breast cancer run at Shelby Farms in 2024.
James Hawkins awaits execution on Tennessee’s death row for stabbing to death Gaither Hawkins, mother of his three children. He then forced his 12-year-old daughter to help cut her into pieces and dispose of her in Mississippi. She testified that Hawkins killed her mother when the woman threatened to tell police that Hawkins had sexually abused the child for years. Her grandfather also was later sentenced to 50 years for raping two young family members.
The FBI maintains a list of the top 10 states for men murdering women. Tennessee was on that list 20 of 24 times between 1996 and 2020.
Shelby County has a higher prevalence of childhood sexual abuse and violence between adults in the home than both the state and the nation. TBI data from 2025 shows more than 16,000 domestic violence offenses were reported in Shelby County, more than 14,000 of them in the city of Memphis. Reports this year are at the same pace. More than half of DV aggravated assaults involved guns. A fourth of the city’s homicides this year were committed by a “loved one” using a gun.
Domestic violence, and more specifically intimate partner violence (IPV), is in every ZIP code, every community and neighborhood, every congregation, and most workplaces. Efforts to identify the risk of lethality and protect victims is one challenge among advocates.
Another is the heartbreaking refusal of some men to stop beating, choking, slapping, kicking, stabbing, stalking, breaking, tormenting, raping, isolating, demeaning, and killing women and girls in their families and in their communities. Women don’t torture and/or murder men at anything like the rate that men kill women. Cases of women killing men are most likely to be self-defense against an abusive male partner. Nine of 10 women murdered by men are killed by someone they know. Guns have boosted the deadly danger astronomically. Death is five times more likely when a gun is present during intimate partner violence.
A website called Women Count USA: Femicide Accountability Project attempts to track murders of women and girls allegedly killed by men and boys. Its one-woman staff, Dawn Wilcox, says, “Male violence against women and girls is a preventable public health crisis. Femicide, domestic violence, and sexual assault are intolerable violations of the basic worth, dignity, and human rights of women and girls in the United States and the world.”
Support for the Violence Against Women Act, which has funded DV shelters, advocates, prevention efforts, and more since 1994, is shrinking under current federal administrators. At the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in January, the United States for the first time in 70 years voted “no” on steps to strengthen access to justice for all women and girls. Political polarization, the organized, well-funded pushback on gender equality, and the regression of women’s rights are a clear and present danger to the safety and well-being of more than half of our population.
It can certainly seem that the most dangerous place for a girl to be is with a boy who swears he loves her. Thankfully, we know that most men and boys are not vicious and can be engaged in helping change those who are. It is indeed men and boys who will end this danger by embracing systems that are responsive, caring, equitable. And accountable.
On Saturday, October 3rd, Memphis’ 15th annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event will see men walking shoulder-to-shoulder with women to show their commitment to ending intimate partner violence, rape, sexual assault, stalking, and harassment. Walkers will gather in Handy Park starting at 10:30 a.m. Daring men will borrow high heels from among those on display, though it’s not required. After a rally at 11:30 a.m., the walk will head west on Beale to Front Street, south to Talbot, east to Main, and back to Beale and the park. Registration is $20 for the general public, $10 for students with ID, and free for those under 18.
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes is a stunt with a deadly serious message: Ending violence against women and girls is up to men and boys. Men and boys must change their behavior — and help those who are violent to stop — before the litany of pain and suffering will change.
Deborah M. Clubb is executive director of the Memphis Area Women’s Council, coordinator of the Memphis Says NO MORE campaign, and lead on the domestic violence awareness education priority of the new Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence convened by the University of Memphis Public Service Institute. Pre-register for the walk at eventbrite.com or see more information at memphiswomen.org.
