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This Just In

Blow by blow

Last year, at least 34 women were murdered in Massachusetts, the highest total in several years, leading this paper to declare 2006 “The Year Women Got Beat Up.” Sadly, 2007 is on pace to exceed last year’s bloodshed.

Already this year, at least nine adult women and one girl have been murdered in the Bay State, according to authorities — that’s a rate of one victim per week.

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The incidents have not only been frequent, they have been ugly. Case in point: last week’s fiery murder-suicide in Lynn, which unfolded in front of the victim’s young child.

That was the third murder-suicide in the state in three weeks.

It was also the third fatal incident involving immolation by fire; another potential victim in Springfield, in January, survived an attack despite sustaining burns over 90 percent of her body.

In 2003, none of the state’s domestic-violence homicides involved fire, according to a study released last December by Jane Doe Inc., an advocacy organization for victims of domestic violence. More than half were stabbings, the study found; 21 percent were shootings, and the remainder involved strangling, smothering, or blunt trauma to the head.

This year’s incidents are following a different pattern:

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