On the day after New Year’s 2025, a 91-year-old man in Camarillo, California, fatally shot his 89-year-old wife, then called police to confess before taking his own life. Their joint obituary described them as “inseparable for the 64 years they were together.” In another incident last November, a 69-year-old retiree in upstate New York, struggling with mental health issues, killed his 68-year-old longtime girlfriend and then himself. A neighbor, expressing shock, said, “I just don’t know what happened to him. He was just a good guy.”
While overall gun deaths have declined in recent years, murder-suicides involving at least one victim aged 65 or older have reached their highest level since the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) began tracking data over a decade ago, according to an analysis by The Trace. Last year, at least 134 older adults were killed in such incidents, a slight increase from 2024. Additionally, 85 older adults perpetrated a killing before dying by suicide. The GVA relies on media and police reports, so the actual numbers may be higher, but it remains one of the most comprehensive sources on U.S. gun violence.
What the Data Reveals
In 2025, there were 679 gun-related murder-suicides in the United States. In 144 of these cases—21 percent—at least one victim or perpetrator was 65 or older. The circumstances varied widely. Illness was a motivating factor in at least 15 percent of cases, with several perpetrators serving as full-time caregivers. A few shootings followed disputes over inheritance, and two shooters cited financial struggles. Some couples left notes suggesting a mutual decision to die, but most appeared to be unilateral actions by the shooter. In many cases, the motive remains unknown, even to families.
In more than half of the cases examined, the perpetrator killed a spouse or romantic partner. In just over a quarter, the victim was a parent, child, or other immediate family member. Family annihilations—where multiple family members are killed—accounted for 16 percent of incidents, a phenomenon that has become twice-daily in the U.S. over the past two years.
Women comprised 80 percent of the victims in these murder-suicides. The oldest victim was 102, killed by her 75-year-old son-in-law in La Porte, Indiana, in May 2025, along with her 73-year-old daughter. A neighbor noted the victims had health problems and the son-in-law had been caring for them. All but two of the shooters were men, with the oldest perpetrator being a 92-year-old man in Mesa, Arizona, who killed his 93-year-old wife before taking his own life in October.
Several cases involved couples whose bodies were found during welfare checks initiated by neighbors or family, sometimes days or weeks later. In these instances, motives were difficult to discern, and in a few cases, police couldn’t even determine who the shooter was. Only a few cases had a documented history of domestic abuse. For example, in August, a 70-year-old man fatally shot his 69-year-old wife and 40-year-old daughter at their Rolling Hills, California, mansion before killing himself. The couple was divorcing, and both victims had restraining orders against him.
Why Does This Happen?
Experts argue that the media often portrays murder-suicide among older couples as “mercy killings,” where one or both spouses are ill and choose death over suffering. Police can reinforce this narrative. After a 90-year-old man in Yorktown, Virginia, killed his 88-year-old wife in June 2025, police said they believed he was trying to end her suffering from advanced dementia.
Sonia Salari, a gerontologist at the University of Utah who has studied murder-suicide across demographics, contends that such killings should be treated as domestic violence and femicide, not romanticized as mutual or compassionate. Evidence of suicide pacts and mercy killings is rare. In a 2007 study, Salari found that “most victims did not consent to the act, and when the danger was known to the victim, some fought back or attempted to flee.”
Suicide rates also challenge the notion of mutuality. Women are far less suicidal than men, and while the female suicide rate peaks between ages 55 and 64 and then declines, the male rate continues to rise with age. Salari explains, “For women, it’s very liberating to get older, when you have less responsibility. But for men, it means losses.” These losses may include a career, physical mobility, or the attention of an infirm spouse—though sometimes the man is the one who is ill. One woman Salari interviewed survived a shooting by her husband, who told her before killing himself, “I’m not going to get over these illnesses with you around.”
The Trace identified more than 20 couples who had been together for two decades or more before dying in a murder-suicide last year. Thirteen had been married for over half a century, and one couple had been married for 77 years. Salari’s theory, based on over two decades of research, is that men perpetrate murder-suicide after a long marriage because “they refuse to see the autonomy of their wife to be able to live beyond them. They also do not respect her right to decision-making at the end of life.”
Sometimes there are no warning signs, leaving families with only questions. Krista Schenck, 47, lost her parents to murder-suicide in 2021. There was no history of violence, but her father, 80, who perpetrated the shooting, had begun showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. “I’m not sure if he had an episode that morning, or if he was planning it,” she told The Trace. “His phone search history had him looking up cremation, and he was also very insistent about me visiting that weekend. So it does point to being planned. But he’s not here, so who actually knows?” Despite their bickering as they aged, her parents never stopped loving each other. “I know that moment doesn’t completely define my dad,” Schenck said. “Bad stuff happens, but it doesn’t erase all the good things. There were so many times he had my back and gave hugs and support when I was growing up. It is rarely cut and dry.”
What Explains the Increase?
The rise in murder-suicide among older adults may be partly demographic. Baby Boomers, who make up 20 percent of the U.S. population, are between 62 and 80 years old—the age range with the highest suicide risk for men. Schenck attributes the increase to an aging population, problems accessing health care, and the economy. “People are left to fend for themselves and feel backed into a corner,” she said. “My parents were fine financially, but even then my dad was having panic attacks about mom being taken care of if something happened to him.”
There are also more guns in circulation. Americans bought 103 million guns between 2020 and 2025, a quarter of the estimated 400 million guns in the country, according to The Trace’s gun sales tracker. While it’s unclear how many buyers were 65 and older, Salari noted that older adults often inherit firearms from deceased friends and relatives.
Catherine Barber, a suicide researcher at Harvard University, suggests that families should discuss gun safety with older relatives who are struggling with domestic violence, health problems, or hopelessness. Voluntary safe gun storage programs—where gun owners temporarily hand over firearms to police, a retailer, or a trusted person during a crisis—have been shown to reduce homicides and suicides. This practice, called safeguarding, does not involve the criminal justice system. Additionally, at least four states have laws allowing people to temporarily ban themselves from buying guns.
Schenck believes physicians should consider gun access when assessing older patients’ mental health, and adults caring for parents should feel empowered to remove weapons when they pose a danger. “I make it a point to warn people now to pay attention to what is going on with their elderly parents,” she said, “because you never know what is going to happen.”
