Murderer Among Us

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so maybe I should not have been surprised to see domestic violence everywhere in the news this week. But I was. Not because the stories were especially shocking. That is actually what bothered me most. They felt familiar. One headline was about Denise Brown, the sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, speaking again about domestic violence more than three decades after losing her sister. Another reported that at least 31 people in Minnesota were known victims of intimate relationship homicide in 2025. A new University of Florida study looked at something we still don't talk about enough: the possible brain injuries that can accompany intimate partner violence. Different stories. Different people. Different states. But I kept thinking the same thing: How much suffering happens before the rest of us finally see it? Domestic violence is rarely one terrible night that suddenly appears out of nowhere. From the outside, people often look for the obvi...

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Every year, we see the purple ribbons, awareness walks, social media posts and reminders to look for the warning signs. But this year, October began with another kind of reminder — one that is much harder to scroll past. A Woman Is Dead. Her Longtime Partner Is Charged. In Philadelphia, 48-year-old Maria Pagan was found dead inside her North Philadelphia home in late September. Police later arrested her longtime partner, 46-year-old Melvin Rivera, and charged him with murder. Authorities have not publicly announced a motive. The case appeared in the news just as Philadelphia organizations were preparing events for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. That timing is difficult to ignore. We spend October talking about domestic violence as a national problem. But for someone, somewhere in America, it isn't a campaign or a statistic. It is happening inside a house or apartment right now. Domestic Violence Rarely Begins Wit...