On Black Women, Power, and the Violence We Miss
By Dr. Erlange Elisme, DSW
Two women, fifteen days apart. Both Black. Both accomplished. Both killed in their own homes by the men who were supposed to love them. This is a piece on intimate partner violence awareness, written in the wake of two recent losses, and it is a conversation our communities can no longer afford to avoid.
On April 1, 2026, Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen was found dead inside her home. She was 38 years old, a first-generation Haitian American, an environmental scientist, and the first Black and Haitian American woman elected to the Coral Springs City Commission. She was preparing to launch a campaign for Congress. Police have described her death as a domestic violence incident. Her husband has been charged with murder.
On April 16, 2026, fifteen days later, Dr. Cerina Fairfax was found dead in her home in Annandale, Virginia. She was 49 years old, a beloved dentist, a mother of two teenage sons, a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. Her estranged husband, a former lieutenant governor of Virginia, shot her in the basement of their home, then went upstairs and killed himself. Their older son called 911 just after midnight.
Cerina had done everything we tell women to do. She had filed for divorce. A judge had awarded her custody of their children. Her husband had been ordered out of the home by April 30. They were scheduled to return to court the following Monday for a trial to divide their assets. She was following the process. She was protecting her children. She was leaving.
He killed her two weeks before his court-ordered move-out date.
“Accomplishment is not a shield. Education is not a shield. Power is not a shield.”
The Pattern We Do Not Want to See
These two women did not know each other. They lived in different states. Their lives looked different. But the pattern that ended their lives is the same pattern that ends the lives of thousands of women every year in this country.
According to CDC data, more than 43.5 million women and 20.7 million men in the United States have experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime (CDC, 2024). About one in five homicide victims in this country is killed by an intimate partner. More than half of women who are murdered are killed by a current or former male partner (CDC, 2026).
The most dangerous moment in an abusive relationship is not when a woman stays. It is when she tries to leave. Research on intimate partner femicide has shown for decades that separation, especially when the abuser perceives loss of control, is one of the strongest predictors of homicide, along with access to a firearm (Campbell et al., 2003).
Cerina was leaving. Nancy was a rising star whose life was expanding beyond her marriage. And both paid the price.
What Black Women Are Not Told
Black women in this country are raised to be strong. We are told, from girlhood, that we can handle anything. We carry families, careers, communities, and churches. We are often the last to rest and the first to serve. And when it comes to our own pain, we are often the last to admit we are drowning.
That cultural training does not disappear when we get degrees or win elections or build successful practices. If anything, accomplishment can make it harder to name what is happening at home. A high-achieving woman may feel that admitting to abuse will undo everything she has built. She may worry about her reputation, her career, her congregation, her children, her standing in the community. She may tell herself she should be able to handle this the way she handles everything else.
Data from the CDC shows that Black women are disproportionately victims of intimate partner homicide in this country, a disparity that widened in recent years (CDC, 2024). That is not an accident. It is the intersection of patriarchy, racism, silence, and a culture that praises Black women for our strength while failing to notice when that strength is being used against us.
The Violence That Comes Before the Violence
Intimate partner violence is rarely only physical. Long before the first bruise, there is usually a slow erosion of the self. Survivors often describe it as a fog that thickens a little each day.
One common tactic is gaslighting, the repeated undermining of a person’s memory, judgment, and sense of reality. Over time, a woman may begin to doubt her own instincts, needs, and worth.
Another tactic is isolation. Friendships become inconvenient. Family becomes a source of conflict. Phones are monitored. Schedules are questioned. By the time the violence becomes heavier, the people most likely to notice are no longer close enough to see it. That is not an accident. It is part of the strategy of control.
Other warning signs include a partner who controls the money, who insists on knowing where she is at all times, who belittles her in private or in public, who threatens harm to children or pets, who pressures her sexually, or who uses scripture, culture, or immigration status to justify control. Non-fatal strangulation is especially dangerous. Research has identified it as one of the strongest predictors of future intimate partner homicide (Glass et al., 2008).
By the time physical violence is visible, the internal work of control has often been going on for years. The absence of visible injury does not mean the absence of abuse. Coercive control leaves marks that no photograph can capture.
When the Abuser Is Respected
There is another reason these two losses are hard to hold. Both men were publicly admired. One was a politician who had been seen, for years, as a rising star. The other was the husband of a sitting vice mayor, someone who walked beside her at community events, someone who was part of her story.
When the abuser is respected, the survivor often pays twice. Once for the abuse itself, and again for the disbelief she will face if she tries to name it. People will defend him. People will say she must be exaggerating. People will look at his public face and refuse to imagine the private one.
One of the former lieutenant governor’s longtime friends told reporters something that deserves to be sat with. Regardless of what he had accomplished in public life, she said, killing his wife would now be his legacy. He would be remembered for fitting the pattern of so many men before him.
She is right. And the work of our communities is to stop making these men exceptions until after the funeral.
What I Keep Coming Back To
As a behavioral health consultant and trauma-informed leadership specialist, I work with organizations, leaders, and communities on how to recognize harm before it becomes tragedy. Every piece of research in this article points to the same truth. Intimate partner violence is not a private matter. It is a public health issue, a community health issue, and a workplace issue.
The women who die from IPV almost always interact with institutions first. Schools. Churches. Workplaces. Clinics. Courts. Friend groups. Leadership teams. The question is not whether we see these women. The question is whether we are trained to recognize what we are seeing.
Most of us are not. Not because we do not care, but because we have not been taught. A staff member who has never been trained in trauma-informed recognition will miss the signs. A faith leader who has been taught to preserve marriage at all costs will counsel patience when safety is what is needed. A well-meaning friend who asks, why doesn’t she just leave, will inadvertently communicate to a survivor that the problem is her, not him.
We can do better than this. We have to do better than this.
If You Need Help
If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Call: 1-800-799-7233
Text: START to 88788
Available 24 hours a day. Services in multiple languages. Free and confidential.
For Nancy. For Cerina. For Every Name We Do Not Yet Know.
Accomplishment did not save them. Education did not save them. Power did not save them. What might have saved them was a community equipped to see what was in front of it, earlier, and louder.
That is the work. That is the work I show up for every day. And it is the work that takes all of us.
May Nancy rest. May Cerina rest. May their children, their families, and their communities find the strength to grieve fully and then to change what must be changed.
A Note from Dr. Elisme
This is the work I do every day. If your organization, nonprofit, faith community, or leadership team wants to build the capacity to recognize intimate partner violence and support survivors with trauma-informed care, I would love to talk with you.
I design trainings, workshops, and consulting engagements to meet the specific needs of the people you serve. Nothing off the shelf. Nothing generic.
Reach out: elisme@elismeconsultingservices.com
Learn more: www.elismeconsultingservices.com
Stay in Conversation
I write when the work asks me to. If you want to stay in conversation with me on trauma-responsive leadership, healing, and community, visit elismeconsultingservices.com to join the list.
If this piece spoke to you, share it with someone who needs it. That is how we interrupt the pattern.
Dr. Erlange Elisme, DSW, is a Behavioral Health Consultant with doctoral-level specialization in trauma-informed leadership and practice, and Founder and CEO of Elisme Consulting Services LLC. She partners with organizations, nonprofits, and faith communities to build trauma-responsive cultures that protect the people they serve.
Sources
Campbell, J. C., et al. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93(7), 1089–1097.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2023/2024 intimate partner violence data brief.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026). About intimate partner violence.
Glass, N., et al. (2008). Non-fatal strangulation is an important risk factor for homicide of women. Journal of Emergency Medicine, 35(3), 329–335.