More than half of US female homicide victims killed by intimate partners
Tyronne Brazille, 50, allegedly shot his wife Lanessa Bradford, 50, during an argument at Independence Community Park in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, then drove roughly 400 miles over five hours to Memphis, Tennessee, with her body in the passenger seat of his car, according to Louisiana investigators cited by The Guardian. The drive passed through Mississippi.
Memphis police stopped Brazille for a traffic violation in downtown Memphis and discovered Bradford deceased with a gunshot wound, according to the Guardian. Brazille was arrested as a fugitive, and an extradition hearing was scheduled for Monday in Memphis, The Guardian reported. The Louisiana arrest warrant charges Brazille with one count of second-degree murder.
Bradford’s longtime friend, Shelicka Decker, told the Memphis CBS News affiliate WREG that Bradford had been planning to leave Brazille and had been in touch with family members out of town as part of an escape plan. “She had the money saved up,” Decker said. “She had come up with a plan, and she was going to just vanish.”
“That was the only way she would be able to get away from him,” Decker said. “She was going to leave her car, she was going to leave all the things behind, and she had been in touch with her family that was out of town, and that’s how she was going to make this move to get away.”
Decker said Brazille lived with mental health problems and had previously threatened to kill himself or his wife when Bradford had raised leaving. Decker questioned what Brazille had been thinking during the drive.
“I have so many questions, like, what were you doing in the car with her that amount of time while she was deceased?” Decker asked. “Where was his mind at during that ride? It’s so crazy and heartbreaking. We all, you know, hung around each other, and this is just not the same person that we grew up with.”
Bradford was employed at an elementary school in Baton Rouge, and colleagues asked police to conduct a welfare check after she missed several days of work, WREG reported.
Crime report data cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than half of US female homicide victims are killed by current or former male intimate partners, and about 20% of homicide victims overall die at the hands of an intimate partner, according to the data.
A 2024 report from the Louisiana Department of Health identified intimate partner violence as a “significant public health concern in the state,” The Guardian reported. The Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence has said the state’s rate of women murdered by men has historically been significantly higher than the national average.