As the facts about the Shaima Alawadi murder case continue to trickle in, it appears more and more that she was the victim of family violence, rather than a hate crime. As somebody who works to prevent family violence at Project Sakinah, this does not come as a surprise to me—nor was it an unexpected turn of events to many of us in the domestic violence/family violence community. Of all the women killed in America in 2007, 64% of them died at the hands of a family member or an intimate partner. While it is possible that this might be matricide, which is exceedingly rare (85% of children who murder one or more of their parents are male), family violence is not.